The Long Road
by trekaddict
Summary: With the battle of New Caprica behind them, the Colonials have not seen the Cylons for months, and routine settles in. However then a sudden discovery floating in an uncharted system threatens to send the fleet on a course unknown and unimaginable, towards danger and redemption alike. Rated T for some mild violence and a few naughty words.
1. Prologue

**This diverges from nBSG canon during Exodus Part 2, but several things are still intact, the identities of the final five chiefly among them. Point of divergence should fast become apparent.  
**

**Yes, the premise isn't exactly new, but I want to give it my own spin, because the other side of this is original. At first this may seem like a wish-fulfilment story, but I do have a plan for everything you will read in this part, but be warned beforehand, I will take some liberties with the timeline, especially concerning the events of "Crossroads".**

******Season 4? What is this Season 4 thing of which you speak?**

**Don't belong to me, just taking them for a ride. The first time I write for nBSG.**

* * *

**The Long Road**

_Prologue_

_Colonial Battlestar Galactica (BSG-75), over New Caprica_

The Combat Information Centre of the Colonial Battlestar _Galactica_ was thrown about again when even more Cylon ordnance impacted on the ship's armour.

"Status on the FTL drive?" Admiral Adama yelled, struggling to be heard over the organized chaos that surrounded him.

"Five minutes at least, Sir!" someone replied, and Adama realized then that he would not get his ship, or those left on the planet out in one piece.

Another explosion rocked the ship, and someone was yelling something, but drowned out by the sparks flying.

"WHAT?"

"I said," the Communications officer coughed away some of the smoke and repeated, "it was the _Pegasus_!"

Adama's head whipped around to the DRADIS readouts, and for one he was glad that someone had disobeyed orders. Outside, in space, the second Colonial Battlestar fired her forward missile launchers. Not expecting an attack from literally behind, the Cylon Base Star was unable to intercept them, and the two salvoes of two thermonuclear devices each turned one half of it into molten slag and the rest of it into a grave. While she made a 'by the skin of our teeth' pass on a second Base Star, her Defence Batteries let loose.

Like it's Colonial counterpart, the Base Star's hull was lined with armour designed to defeat the other side's weapons, but at this range, hits into the various weak points, such as the hangar bays and sensor systems were unavoidable, and in the fifteen seconds it took the _Pegasus_ to pass, only few shots were fired at her, while the Base Star was crippled, at least enough so that it would not matter for the remainder of this battle.

_Pegasus_ fired her forward launchers again, but the Cylons on the two remaining Base Stars were alerted now. Much to their surprise, the nukes were not set to detonate against them, but rather between them and the fight, so seconds before they would have been intercepted, theirs and the Colonial sensors were blinded.

However the Colonials had one advantage, the crew manning the _Pegasus_ had known what was going to happen and the crew and fighters of the _Galactica_ had been warned at the last moment on the tactical frequency. Still, some died or were permanently blinded.

By the time the Cylon DRADIS showed anything again, the two Battlestars had adopted a staggered formation, with the _Pegasus_ partly shielding the older ship against fire, and not by coincidence the more damaged sections. This forced _Galactica_ to cease fire with part of her guns, but this was more than compensated for by the presence of the second ship.

Even so, the Cylons were beginning to overwhelm them, and when the Colonial Fighters disengaged...

By the time they realized what was going on, more than half of them had already landed, and before they could re-group to overwhelm the defences of the two Battlestars, the Colonial ships vanished in the bright flash of their FTL drives.

* * *

The actual party had waited until the fleet had executed two consecutive jumps, and even then Admiral Adama and was more interested in taking up stock of what they had lost. Hundreds had been left behind, both the Battlestars had suffered significant damage which would take weeks to repair. If one had a drydock that is, for them it would take even longer. Still, _Galactica_ had taken less damage than if Lee had followed his orders...

A knock on the hatch to his quarters made him look away from the reports on his desk.

"Enter."

The officer looked different from when he had last seen him, and the ashen, almost defeated look on his son's face made him forget protocol. Nothing like the end of the world to teach one the right set of priorities.

He rose, stepped around the table and hugged Apollo tight.

"How are you holding up, son?"

Apollo sighed and sat down in the chair opposite his father's.

"I've been better. Not sleeping much doesn't help."

Adama looked at his son, and all things considered, Apollo was in better shape than he had been years back when his mother had died.

"For what it's worth, I know what you are going through..."

Before the attack on the twelve Colonies this comment would have drawn a biting retort, heated words and slamming doors, but Apollo had gone through the same process as his father.

"I still see her face every time I close my eyes, dad."

Adama was at a loss for words, but the look on his face and in his eyes told Apollo just that.

"When that display bank fell, she looked at me. Dee looked right in my face when she died, dad. I don't know how I am supposed to live with that." he said, cradling his head in his hands.

Adama sat down himself. "I can't tell you that, Lee, but..."

Apollo looked up, and the ghost of a smile ran over his face. "Thanks anyway, Dad. I appreciate it."

With that, he pulled on his Commander's persona and reached for a uniform pocket, taking out a leaf of paper.

"The damage to the ship could have been worse. _Pegasus_ has.." he paused, swallowing, "three dead and forty-seven wounded of all categories. My CMO thinks that of those two will die within a few days, the rest should recover. _Pegasus_ has lost half a dozen Battery guns, which we can replace from stores, and my...XO... says that the manufacturing plants will be online by this afternoon, so by tomorrow we can start to replace our Viper losses. The chief says the other repairs will take a couple of days, but the ship can jump and launch Vipers."

Adama nodded and knew that _Pegasus_ hat gotten off lightly. In their few conversations between then and now he had gleaned that Lee had had the desperate idea to ram his ship into one of the Base Stars, had the Gods not smiled on them and placed the final jump co-ordinates behind the Cylons so that Lee had been able to surprise them the way he had.

"Very well then, Commander."

Apollo handed over the papers that contained the more detailed damage report he'd read on the shuttle ride over. Some thirty minutes later he was rising to his feet and stepping through the hatch. He barely managed to make it to the hallways outside the pod where his shuttle was docked before near-collapsing against the bulkhead.

He had to make it aboard, because there were any number of people he did not want to see him like this, especially not..

"Lee, how are you?"

Perfect, frakking perfect. Just the one person he least wanted to see right now.

"Captain Thrace, what can I do for you?"

If Starbuck had decided to take offence at his brusque tone, she did not show it, instead she grinned and placed herself beside Apollo on the other side of the hatch.

"Nothing much, _Commander_." she said, putting obviously insolent emphasis on the rank.

Ah, there was the Starbuck he knew. However, he had too many problems of his own to let the bite catch.

"Well then, I will return to my ship then." Saying no more, he turned, opened the hatch and stepped through it, closing it behind with a bang that to Starbuck had the sound of finality.

But instead of doing what her instincts told her and following him through the hatch, she silently cursed and banged her fist against the metal of the bulkhead, making the hallway reverberate with the sound. "And to you too, Lee." she said and stalked away.

She hadn't seen that the Admiral was standing at the next intersection in the other direction, sad that his two favourite subordinates has moved so far apart. But, there was a reason why he was in this corridor.

Sickbay was still overflowing with those that needed aid, but Cottle had still managed to get a sense of order into the whole mess, with his medics conducting triage and treating the lesser wounds while he and the only two other civilian doctors on the ship handled the more severe cases. Adama knew that a similar arrangement was in force aboard _Pegasus_, but he doubted that Lee had been able to force himself to visit there more than once since the battle.

One of the few semi-private beds, set apart from the rest of sickbay by a few screens, was occupied by someone else he really had to talk to. Adama nodded at Cottle, but hesitated at the threshold. The last time he had talked to Sharon Agathon it had not gone well. In spite of being the best Raptor pilot on either of the Battlestars under his command, she had still forgotten military discipline when coming face to face with the Admiral. Standing on the other side of the bed that held her no longer comatose husband and with her long thought to be dead daughter in her arms, she had accused the Admiral of deliberately deceiving her, not believing him when he had truthfully told her he haddn't known. In the end he had followed Cottle's 'suggestion' and left sickbay. Two hours later Halo had woken up.

"You know that I shot her for saying that you had lied to me?"

Adama was startled to find that she had heard him. He pulled the curtain aside and stepped through, closing the gap behind himself. The scene was similar to what he had seen the last time he had tried to talk to her, only that this time the baby was awake and playing with a rattle that someone had made for her out of discarded Raptor parts.

"Lieutenant, I..."

"I believe you, Sir." she said, without looking up. "I didn't know if you had lied to me or not, and had no way to tell, but isn't this what trust is?"

Recognizing his own words from what seemed to be so long ago, Adama stepped closer and looked down at the still form of Karl Agathon.

"What happened down there?"

Sharon snorted. "It was when I went to get the codes. They all didn't recognize me, the Centurions and the even the humanoid models. But then in that room, when that...thing told me that you had lied to me, I...I lost it, Sir."

She looked up and her face made it clear that she was seeking his forgiveness.

"I shot her, Admiral, right between the eyes."

Hera had probably been sensing her mother's distress, but she calmed down quickly, and Adama was granted the opportunity to observe the only Cylon he trusted with her child.

"I had the codes, but instead of following the plan, I just ran through the complex and the camp, searching for my daughter. If not for Felix, I..."

Adama knew this story from Gaeta's end. How he had seen a frantic Sharon Agathon ransacking the offices in the complex, how he had forced her to give him the codes when she had refused to leave without her daughter, how he had seen her run off, throwing the chip with the codes at him almost in an afterthought.

"What made you believe her, Lieutenant?"

"It was the first thing she said when she recognized me. 'He lied to you, you know. They don't deserve your loyalty.' She then told me where I could find Hera."

"Then..." But before he had finished the sentence he realized what had happened.

"I ever only half believed her until I stumbled over the tent. Pure chance, Sir. Pure chance. If I had taken a turn in the other direction, Boomer would have beaten me there."

"You met her?" Adama exclaimed, startling Hera into a small, thin wail.

When she had calmed down, Sharon looked up at him. "I hope there was no Resurrection ship in range, Admiral. I had the advantage of being armed."

It told Adama everything he needed to know and explained some of the wounds she still had on her face.

"But Admiral?" she said, sensing that Adama was about to turn and leave, "you didn't know. I truly believe that now."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Helo began to stir, so Adama merely smiled, nodded and turned to leave. Once he was out of sickbay, he sighed. One issue somewhat resolved, only a million others awaiting him.

* * *

_Cylon Base Star, over New Caprica_

The meeting room at the centre of the Base Star was not very full, only Caprica Six and a Five were present, the other humanoid models in the system were engaged in damage control efforts on the crippled Base Star or on the surface, while Boomer had yet to return from the Resurrection ship, which was stationed in a system two jumps away.

"Well, this was a frakking disaster, wasn't it?" Six opened the proceedings by stating the obvious. "We did not expect that the humans would delay jumping in their second Battlestar, nor that it would appear in a position so advantageous to them."

Five only snorted. "Oh come on, you don't believe this was by design any more than I do. The Humans were lucky, that's all."

Six pondered this, and then was forced to agree.

"Probably. Still, one can't help but note their... tenacity and courage."

"This wasn't courage, it was sheer desperation, nothing more."

"It may be, but the point is, they succeeded where they shouldn't have, and I, and my line, can't help but wonder what God's plan was for this world."

"I have faith that we will find out in due time." Five said, and Six knew that he was serious, "but at the moment the matter at hand is, what do we do now?"

"We do what we did since the fall of the Colonies." a new voice added itself to the discussion. It was a One, in particular the copy that had infiltrated _Galactica_ only to be fired out of an airlock. "We hunt them, and we destroy them. Admittedly, it would have been easier to do that here, but they can run only so fast and so far. Even more so now that we have that pet of yours, Six."

"I still believe what I said when we first arrived here, Gaius Baltar will prove to be a valuable asset. He was their best remaining scientist, and he can be properly motivated to help us."

"Can you guarantee his loyalties? He is a human after all." Cavil spat and was surprised when Six answered with confidence that yes, she could.

"How?"

"Humans don't download, so they tend to be very protective of the one body and life they have. I believe he can be properly motivated. Especially if we give him the option of remaining behind alone on this planet and say that the Colonials may have been forced to leave some behind too."

"Just what would he give us?"

Six sighed inwardly, and hoped that Cavil hadn't read it on her face anyway, "Aside from being the best expert on Colonial systems we have, he is...was, their foremost scientist. His knowledge and his training will help us when the time comes. He knows the humans better than any of us _because_ he is one of them."

Cavil phased out as he consulted those of his line that were within range.

"We agree. For now."

"That still leaves us with what to do," Five said and called up a local star map on a viewscreen folding up from the console in front of him, "and since there's only about half a dozen systems within jump range, I suggest we send reconnaissance groups into each of them, some raiders, just enough to do a quick sweep of the area."

Six was about to say something, but Five raised his hand. "I know that they must have jumped right on ahead, but _Galacica_ and, to a lesser extent, _Pegasus_ were bleeding atmosphere and debris, and I doubt the Colonials managed to pick any of it up."

"So we should find some trace of them," Cavil replied, " and and can from there extrapolate their probably course, assuming they continue in the general direction they had taken before this whole mess happened."

The other Cylons in the room nodded, and Cavil could not help but add: "This time at least we will finish this. Once and for all."

**tbc**


	2. Chapter 1

**AN: I am using callsigns, where known, when referring to people outside of dialogue, and their names/ranks when they talk among each other where applicable.**

**Chapter One**

_Three months later_

"Racetrack, Galactica Control."

_"__Galactica Control, go Racetrack."_

"The Asteroid reads full with all sorts of goodies, _Galactica_. Fire up the mining equipment, over."

_"__This is good news, Racetrack. Congratulations from Galactica Actual for you."_

Lt. Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson moved the Raptor away from the asteroid, careful not to hit any of the millions of other pieces that mad up the asteroid belt near the middle of the system, outside the habitable zone. Or what would be the habitable zone if the one planet in that zone had not suffered from the after-effects of a massive asteroid impact that must have hit it not much more than half a year or so ago.

But the Colonials had no intention of staying in this system for any longer than they had to. Adama felt that while things were quiet, they were too damn quiet for his liking, and like most of the pilots, Racetrack agreed with him, though just what the Cylons were up to was the subject of lively off-duty debate and of course the ever-present rumour mill.

Because of this the plan was to stay for no more than a few days to mine some of the Asteroids for badly needed resources and then move on. Racetrack wasn't aware of the fact that Admiral Adama and President Roslin both had no idea whatever as to what to do next, the disaster at New Caprica had thrown all the plans they'd had completely for a loop.

They had some ideas, but in the end they were just hanging on and hoping for the best.

Racetrack meanwhile was moving on the the next largish cluster of rock that seemed promising enough to warrant closer examination, while her ECO kept an eye on the DRADIS readouts.

"Anything, Mac?"

McCall shook his head. "Nothing, aside from more rocks. And some rocks."

Racetrack grinned inside her helmet before she keyed the wireless. "Galactica Control, this is Racetrack, proceeding to my next waypoint, over."

_"__Copy that, Racetrack. Actual wants you to be on the lookout for cylons hiding behind asteroids, Galatica Control, out."_

Racetrack silently giggled, it was clear that she wasn't the only one who was bored with this sort of duty. There were enough Raptors and Vipers flying around in this system since they had arrive here some six hours ago, not to mention _Pegasus_'s recon of the area closer to the primary. Any raider hiding would have either been discovered or jumped out already, and since there weren't a dozen Base Stars bearing down on the Colonials, all of it indicated that they were alone here.

The cluster of asteroids she was scanning now was huge, and rather tight.

As they got closer, McCall leaned closer over his readouts and tapped a few controls.

"Hmm, that's odd. Racetrack, I'm getting some anomalies here, reading materials I don't recognize."

"Have you discovered some minerals or something?"

McCall shook his head. "I don't think so. It almost..." he paused, tapped some controls, before leaning back and looking towards the cockpit. "El-Tee, this looks like it's an alloy."

"Wait, are you telling me it's looks like it's artificial?"

A nod came as reply. "Yeah."

Racetrack flipped the switch that primed her weapons systems.

"Whatever the frack that is, the boss needs to know. Racetrack, _Galactica_. We have an anomalous contact, metal, reading as artificial alloys. Request permission to investigate. Over."

_"__Hold one, Racetrack."_

They waited for half a minute before hearing from the ship again.

_"__This is Galactica Actual. Are you certain?"_

Racetrack turned and her ECO nodded.

"Positive, Galatica Actual. It does not, repeat, not, read like any known Cylon alloy or craft, and," she paused, glanced at McCall who just shook his head, "we don't read any nukes either, Sir."

The Admiral paused, and when he came back on, Racetrack could almost hear the sigh in his voice. _"Very well, Racetrack. We are sending the nearest flight of Vipers to back you up. Once they're there, go in and investigate, by the Gods, be careful. Galactica Actual, over and out."_

The Raptor hovered near the cluster while the two Vipers were diverted from their patrol station. Racetrack had nodded off, so when five minutes later a voice came out of the wireless, she was startled awake.

_"__Rapter three-zero-seven, this is Hotdog, we are on your six now, over."_

Racetrack shook the sleep out of her head and replied almost immediately. "Roger that, Hotdog. Assume high cover position while we go in."

_"__Copy that, 307._

After they had assumed top cover, Racetrack pushed the engines to a quarter speed and slowly moved towards the cluster.

"Racetrack, Control, moving in now."

_"__Actual says to be careful."_

Rapter 307 hugged the nearest of the asteroids as they slowly edged around it. The area was half-hidden behind a massive asteroid that almost approached planetoid size and strewn with smaller rocks, so finding the object would not be easy.

"Where is it?"

"Dunno, LT. I'm getting a faint energy signature though."

Racetrack checked her own DRADIS readout, and sure enough, there was a blip. "Bearing..."

She flipped a switch and the Raptor's forward light came on. "There! I got it!"

It was...a ship of some sort. No type any of the Colonials were familiar with.

_Galactica CIC_

"A ship?" Adama asked incredulously, but Racetrack's voice still came out of the CiC speakers.

_"__Confirmed, Galactica. No type I've ever seen, even in the files, and it doesn't seem to be Cylon, at least not a recent one. I can clearly see a cockpit area, but no, repeat, no canopy. It's like the pilot ejected."_

"Any other observations, Racetrack? Over."

_"__It seems to be...it's about the size of a Raptor, Sir. Insignia and writing of some sort, but not in any language I or the computer recognize. It's pretty beat up, Sir. Whoever flew this was in one hell of a fight. Scorchmarks, bullet holes, the lot."_

"Hold one, Racetrack."

Adama put the headset down and turned to where his XO, Colonel Saul Tigh, was looking better today. For almost a month, Adama had watched how his friend had slid ever father down the proverbial slippery slope, but somehow, since they had passed that cursed Nebula where they had nearly lost Starbuck three weeks ago, he had started to recover himself, luckily.

"What do you think?"

"Gods, Bill. Doesn't matter whose ship that is, they might come to pick it up again, and we are strewn all over the frakking system. Never mind whoever shot it up might come and visit. I'd rather not be all over the place if or when they do."

Adama nodded in agreement and turned towards his Communications Officer, ordering him to re-call all vessels, especially _Pegasus_ and her Vipers, and to issue the emergency jump co-ordinates to the Fleet.

"Now that that's taken care of..."

Tigh sighed. "I'll have the Chief and the Marines on standby."

Adama nodded and picked up the headset again.

"Racetrack, this is _Galactica_ Actual. Can you take the...wreck in tow?"

_"__I think so, Actual. It looks pretty beat up, but seems to be structurally sound."_

Adama stepped over to the main display and looked at the situation. _Pegasus_ would by now have recovered most of her Vipers and Raptors, jumping back to the Fleet and his own position soon. The site where Racetrack had located the wreck was not far enough to warrant a jump, and Adama was loathe to leave the Fleet alone.

Yet at sublight it would take Racetrack almost an hour to return, let alone if she towed the wreck. Still, it couldn't be helped.

"Racetrack, get moving. Actual out."

The Raptor pilot acknowledged and Adama looked at the faces of those on duty in CIC. Most of them showed little or no emotion, after all, they had their hopes thoroughly dashed little more than a year ago, and no one was trying to get them up again, not before there was tangible proof.

"Sir, I.."

"Yes, Lieutenant Gaeta. I do want you there too."

"Yes, Sir."

Gaeta was among those that had had the hardest time to re-adjust to life in the fleet. By now everyone knew that he had been working for the resistance all along, but for the first few weeks, the looks and the whispering behind his back had been hard on him. Even now he still felt the need to prove himself to the fleet, and it was clear that he had seen this as another opportunity to do so. Considering how uncomfortable he'd been around Starbuck the last time Adama had seen them in the same room suggested that there was a lot of history, and very recent history at that.

Adama frowned for a moment and glanced at Tigh, who only shrugged and shook his head.

He sighed and picked up the headset.

"Lieutenant, get me Colonial One."

"Yes, Sir."

* * *

The first thing that struck Adama was that Racetrack had been right, did did look a lot like a Raptor. In the basic layout at least, and there the similarities stopped.

Overall, there were very few of the angles that characterized the exterior of a Colonial Raptor, except where what had presumably been the entire cockpit section was missing. What was still there was smooth, and if not for a few places where the plates where bent from weapons fire, it almost looked like it was chiselled from a single lump of metal, with the extreme point of the nose being painted in a darker, almost black form of grey when compared to the rest.

Going aft, and ignoring the charred and twisted area where presumably the emergency ejection motors had damaged the ship even further, the fuselage was almost straight, except for one chin-like protrusions on each side that held some sort of guns and one half-extended canard that was probably joined by an identical one on the other side.

Closely behind where the cockpit had been some sort of roll-cage marked where the fuselage widened slightly and the two pods containing the engines were attached to it. A set of sharply swept-back wings and a pair of tail rudders coming from the same wing roots at an angle of what looked to be between sixty and seventy degrees.

Had it not been so badly damaged, it would have looked like a very fast and agile craft.

The writing would have been barely legible even if it has been in Colonial Standard, but there were what Adama presumed to a tail number and several sets of insignia.

The video footage on the display of the room they were in was as high in resolution as their equipment allowed, but even if it hadn't been it would have shown that the vessel had been through a fight at least as bad as any they had experienced since the fall of the Colonies.

Adama leaned back in his seat and looked at the others present. To his left sat the President, and without looking at her he knew that she was as..worried as he was. To his right sat Colonel Tigh and Major Thrace, for once in agreement in that the ship was not Cylon and just might be from the 13th tribe. Behind them sat his son, having recovered somewhat from the death of his wife, though he was still somewhat awkward when being removed from his own little world aboard Pegasus, in turn flanked by Major Karl 'Halo' Agathon, his XO.

"Well, Lieutenant?"

"We have finished our preliminary examination of the...craft and I have to report that the electronics outside the drivesection are well and truly fried to cinders, Sir."

Adama sensed a but Starbuck beat him to it. "I sense a but..."

"Yes, Ma'am. It almost looks like it was done on purpose. The damage to the fuselage looks worse than it is, the armour used has swallowed a surprising amount of fire. Best guess, the systems were rigged to fuse into slag when the cockpit section was ejected. This is supported by indications that a lot of the damage was done from the inside out. We haven't had time yet to take it fully apart, but we'll do so, first thing tomorrow."

"Are there any indications to where it's from?" asked the President, as usual concerned first with her own primary mission.

"None, Ma'am. If we could decipher their language, or if the cockpit area was intact we might be able to say something but at the moment we have no idea. What I can tell you for certain is that it's not Cylon."

Of course what he didn't say was that the only bits of what may have passed for a Cylon written language had been their Computer Code, though admittedly it was unlikely that anyone pasted code on the outside of their ships."

"Anything else?"

"The Chief is still pouring over the drive system, but there the damage is far more severe. Their fuel tanks, or what we presume to be their fuel tanks, are empty, but we found traces of their fuel, and it's not Tylium. Other than that the drive system is, as far as we can tell, not that dissimilar from ours."

"What about the Hyperdrive?"

"To get at it, we'd have to take the entire thing apart, and that is going to take time."

The President asked the next question, and it was a good one.

"Any sign of the pilot?"

Adama answered this one. "_Galactica_ and," he said, then nodding at his son, "_Pegasus_ have sent escorted Raptors back out again since we brought our find aboard yesterday."

Apollo, who had spent most of the conference listening in attentively, but being uncharacteristically quiet, as was usual these days when out of his ship read from a message form.

"Athena, as CAG, has been co-ordinating the Raptor patrols, and so far nothing, but she wanted me to caution you that the object, if it is still here at all, wouldn't be very large, and we have no idea what frequency their emergency beacon operates on, if they use them in the first place. There is also the possibility that they recovered it and simply decided not to bother with the ship itself."

"Which brings us to the most important question at hand." Starbuck said, "just who are _they_. And someone has to say it, so it might as well be me. They might not be the 13th Tribe."

"Yes, but who else could it be? We are straying in the realm of bad half-cubit fiction here." Halo interjected, and Adama was forced to agree. Time to make the call.

"Either way, we can't afford to stay here forever. We may not have seen the Cylons for months, but I'm not going to take any chances with the security of this fleet."

"What do you propose to do, Admiral?" asked the President, her tone of voice clearly indicating that he best have the intention of searching for the pilot, or any other trace of the craft's origins, and Adama suppressed a grimace.

"Madame President, we will spend at least another week here. We have already completed post of the survey of the Asteroid belt, so I will keep the Battlestars and half the Vipers here, covering the fleet, while the rest combs this system back and forth for anything unusual. And once we've mined the materials we need, we jump on schedule."

If he was to be honest with himself, he was as eager as the President to find out where their find had come from, but unlike Laura Roslin, he had the higher obligation to safeguard the Fleet.

She looked at him, her face saying 'Fair enough', though he suspected that this conversation was only on hold until about a day before the jump.

* * *

_The two groups of Cylon Raiders that had jumped into the system were one of a group of ships that continually followed the fleet. They were a rare breed indeed, they had no armament, only the best active and passive ECM technology the Cylons could devise. With hulls fashioned from the same materiel the Colonials had used in the construction of the vessel that had helped destroy the Resurrection ship, they were nearly invisible to even the Cylon's own sensors, let alone Colonial system. To prevent direct optical tracking, or at least to hinder it, they were painted in a black so dark that it seemed as if it was swallowing the light of the systems primary._

_Still, no risks were taken, and the guiding intelligences aboard the Raiders had the strictest programming to use any active systems only in extreme emergencies, and this included their hyperdrives. For the last several months, the Cylons had followed the fleet by sending groups of Raiders, first normal ones, and for a few weeks these new ones, developed with the help of Gaius Baltar, to every system the Colonials might have conceivably jumped to. As soon as the Fleet was detected, one would jump back out (usually on the other side of the primary) and carry word back, and then ships would proceed to all the other locations that could be jumped to from that particular system, with the remainder of the Cylon pursuit force following ten jumps or so behind._

_It had been a lively discussion when the Cylons had decided to hold off on the destruction of the Fleet until they had led them to Earth or simply could not run any longer, for whatever reason, but in the end the 'moderates', led by Boomer and Caprica Six, had prevailed. They had argued that the Colonials were the only way to find the rest of Humanity, indeed to find out if the 13__th__ Tribe really existed. If they destroyed them right away, then at some point in the future, the Cylon race might stumble over Earth and be as unprepared for it as the Twelve Colonies had been for the original attack, or even the rising itself._

_As expected, the Cavils had been the most insistent in their opposition to this plan, they had eventually accepted the logic behind the proposal, as at the same time the old methods were being used, albeit at a distance._

_The Raiders knew nothing of this, they only knew that they were to, if they detected them, observe the Colonials, and report in. They had noted that the Colonials had twice rapidly re-arranged their deployments in this system, once when they had realized that the system was rich in various ores, even more so than the Raptor scouts had indicated, and then once again two days ago. _

_Information from within the Fleet itself had dried up since the Eight calling herself Sharon Agathon had betrayed her race, presumably she had helped the Colonials identify the remaining humanoid models._

_So when thirteen hours after the conference (of which they knew nothing) had concluded, they noted it when the Colonial Fleet frequencies were suddenly full with messages that they had 'found it'._

**tbc**

**The impact event on that planet was perfectly natural, an no evil machinations of any sort were behind it. And yes, the Final Five already know who they are. I showed it in this throw-away manner because for one, we know how that conversation went between Tigh and the others and also because I tried to write it and frankly, it sucked.**

**Also, I am assuming that over time, the Colonials combed the fleet for further examples of the known humanoid Cylon models, and that over time they managed to re-build Cylon detection technology, making every member of the Fleet go through scanning. Summed up, I turned off the Stupid virus.**

**Comments and reviews fuel me.**


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: If the relevation of the info is too slow for you, please holler. Also, this is un-betad, since my usual beta-reader is in a different time zone than me and I want to get this out ASAP. So, all mistakes are mine.**

**Chapter 2**

**ENEMY BASE IN SYSTEM CM7789U NOT RPT NOT CONFIRMED - FORCES CONSIST OF STANDARD OPFOR RAIDING/SCOUT FORCE - OBSERVED OPFOR JUMP FROM SYSTEM - ATTACKED BY ENEMY FIGHTERS DAMAGE HEAVY – EJECTED NAV DEAD SEND SAR - MESSAGE ENDS**

Later Adama would thank the Gods for the fortune that the Raptor that had found the cockpit section of the vessel was close enough to Pegasus for her Chief Medical Officer to be with them in less than fifteen minutes. The cockpit was not made of a single piece, instead a metal frame held several smaller panes of what wasn't normal glass by any means.

The pilot, a woman, had survived but was in a coma. Under the supervision she was currently in the isolation wing, as were the remains of the co-pilot. Best take no chances.

The doc had given their equipment a clean bill, it had all been run through the sanitizer for more than an hour. It was only designed to combat things known to Colonial Science. Still, he was feeling confident, and so far no one had come down with more than a cold, and risk was part of the job description of a Colonial Officer, and his father wanted a report soonest.

The Flight suits the two pilots had been wearing were not unlike their Colonial counterparts, except that they were in a strange dark, slightly grayish green instead of the colours he was used to. It was covered with insignia, where a Colonial suit had the crest of the Battlestar it belonged to, these had something similar, and though the gold-blue insignia was of a similar structure as the Colonial ones, he was once again stumped by the difference in the language. The shoulder pads on both suits were adorned with an odd arrangement of golden stripes on a dark blue background.

Both suits had this arrangement, and since the one the pilot had worn had two thick and one thinner stripe, and the other only two thick ones, he presumed that they represented rank. He inspected the helmets more closely and found that they both had what looked a lot like some sort of computer cable port on them. The Chief was still pouring over the pod itself, so Apollo could only theorize as to it's use.

On the other shoulder they had another set of gold-blue insignia, different and still similar to the one on the other, and over the left breast pocket there was another patch, dark grey, with lighter grey writing on it, though over that writing there was a set of what looked like pilot wings of some sort, with a stylized form of the insignia on the shoulder patches.

Clearly they belonged to some sort of organized military force, but beyond that there was not much that they could tell him.

A second cable contained the equipment from the various pockets.

"Commander?"

It was Doctor Bojay, his CMO.

Apollo sighed and placed the item he had been about to inspect closer back down on the table and turned to the Doctor, the only other person in the room.

"What do have for me, Doc?"

Bojay handed Apollo a clipboard.

"Here's my preliminary autopsy report on the dead one. Preliminary cause of death is oxygen deprivation. I'll know more eventually, but his colleague is obviously my priority."

"This fits, the Chief said that both halves of the cockpit had their own life support systems. His emergency tanks were full, hers were empty. The idea is that his systems malfunctioned."

Bojay nodded. "That would explain a few things."

"It's been almost two days, will she ever wake up, and in any case, what should I tell the Admiral?"

"Tell him not to bother me and leave me to my work, if he wants the pilot to live. Though I can tell you for certain that the both of them are fully, and totally human. There's one odd thing though, they both have some sort of computer chip implanted in the cerebral cortex on the Temporal lobe, about here." he said, placing a finger on the back of his head.

"WHAT?" Apollo exclaimed and turned on his heels to look directly at the doctor.

"And before you ask, it's not any Cylon technology I've seen. The closest equivalent is the treatment where you get a chip implanted to combat some forms of blindness, but for that it's in the wrong place, and as far as I can tell without completely cutting them up their eyes are fine."

"Does that chip harm them?"

Bojay shook his head. "No, at the moment it's inactive, and the pilot's brain activity is as normal as can be under the circumstances. If this were...Science Fiction I'd say the chip is a memory enhancer of some sort, or it could also be just something to cure a chronic illness of some sort."

He held up his hand. "However, if it is, then it's most likely genetic and not contagious, never mind that it's highly unlikely to begin with. The lab is running a genetic analysis, and we will hear something of them by tomorrow, but I'd be very surprised if that turned up something. Other than that, neither of them has any significant wounds."

Apollo had long since learned to appreciate the God's small graces.

"So what's your prognosis?"

"Unless something unexpected happens, she'll survive, but also be stuck in a coma. Her oxygen levels were so low, it was a matter of two or three minutes. If I hadn't induced a medical coma, she would have entered one on her own anyway, and that would have been far more damaging. As things are, it's impossible to tell when she wakes up again."

"Do what you can, Doc."

The doctor nodded and left Apollo alone in the room. Apollo leaned back against the bulkhead and was trying to fight the memories, and as usual when he was distressed, his thoughts strayed to someone who was not his late wife, and as always he kept telling himself that it wasn't because she calmed him, and as usual the voice of his wife appeared soon after, with that semi-serious, slightly sarcastic tone that had once been among the things he loved about her.

He shook the thoughts away with considerable effort.

_Pegasus_' Commander resumed his examination of the artefacts, beginning with the one he had held when the doctor had interrupted him. By the texture of it, it was made of some sort of plastic and what it contained was some sort of liquid. As he turned it around, he could see that there were pictures that showed how it was to be operated, and if he interpreted them correctly, it would heat up the contents. On the front there was only a short, three-letter word prominently displayed with smaller writing underneath. By the looks of things it was like one of the drinks packages that was part of Colonial emergency kit, but why on earth would someone need to heat up a drink that was part of a package that was supposed to provide the bare minimum needed for survival?

Putting this aside, he picked up..a picture. It showed a small group of Islands off a larger land mass, but when he turned it he was startled when he could see the picture of the two halves of a planet. It looked to be three-quarters covered with water, but in spite of the clouds he could make out three distinct land masses. could see what it was, for it wasn't a picture of persons like the ones on the memorials _Pegasus_ and _Galactica_ both had, but rather a small group of Island, seemingly lying near a major land mass.

More confusing information and little to go on. If only he had access to the Caprica Language institute. That gave him an idea, and locking the room behind him, he walked to CIC to get in touch with his father. There were more items, among them a strange, pocket-computer sized black plastic box that was entirely featureles, except for a strange three-coloured flag.

* * *

[B]SAR FORCE DISPATCHED TO CM7789U – EMERGENCY BEACON DETECTED UPON ENTRY – SIG STRENGTH 057 - DISCOVERED UNKNOWN SHIPS FIGHTERS SUPPORT CRAFT IN SEARCH AREA – ESTIMATED NOT RPT NOT OPFOR – SUGGEST COVERT OBSERVATION TO DISCOVER UNKWN ID – REQUEST RECCE GROUP FROM JOINT BASE PROXIMA – MESSAGE ENDS[/B]

* * *

Half an hour later he mentally cursed his father for sending Kara Thrace as his personal messenger, but on his own deck he felt secure enough so that he could function.

"So Apollo," she said in that annoyingly teasing tone of hers, the one she only used with her friends, "your doc is she they aren't skinjobs?"

"From.." he cleared his throat, then continued, "from his end, yes, and Athena has also never seen them before. Just to be sure I circulated their pictures around the ship, and so far no one recognized them, Major."

Starbuck noted that he was apparently playing the professionalism card, like every time they had met since the Battle of New Caprica and Dee's death. She had tried every angle she knew, from ignorance of anything being wrong to outright insubordination, nothing had worked. She wasn't going to give up, but Gods knew, she was out of ideas, so she went back to basic Starbuck mode, because she knew that what ever his issue was, he'd always let her get away with it.

"So she going to make it?"

"Doc is hopeful, but..."

"Yeah, but."

He turned and looked through the small window into the isolation room, more to distance himself from Starbuck as for anything else.

The woman nearly disappeared under the machines, but Apollo could see the strands of red hair poking out, a feature that was so rare among the Colonials as to be almost totally unknown. Had she been standing up, she would have rivalled Starbuck in height, but other than that she was covered in too many tubes and sensors to see anything.

"Lee..."

Apollo recognized that tone of voice, he had heard it before when she had 'confessed her sins' before her scouting mission at Ragnar Anchorage, and a few times since, and he knew that when she used it she was both serious and saying something that did not come easy to her.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think they belong to the 13th Tribe?"

"I don't know, Starbuck, I don't know." he replied, not noticing what he had said or the grin that broke out on her face, "But whoever she's with, they know a whole frakking lot more than we do."

"Indeed, Commander Apollo."

The voice belonged to the President of the Twelve Colonies and as Laura Roslyn stepped beside them, Apollo was recovered enough from his surprise to try and decide whom he would throw into hack for letting the President aboard without telling him.

"Oh simmer down, Commander. I chose to exercise some of my powers as Commander in Chief, so there is no need for anyone finding himself or herself behind bars."

"Yes, Madame President." Apollo replied and gave her a smile, and he meant it. Two of the three people alive that would see through his façade were in the room, and they both deserved his best effort. Lately it came ever easier to him, but.. 'Yes, Lee, but.'

He shook the thought of Dee's voice away and turned back to the President.

"So what can I do for you, Ma'am?"

Roslyn stepped closer to the observation window and looked at the bed where the patient was still unmoving.

"Are we sure that she isn't a Cylon?"

"Sharon...I mean, Captain Agathon, says that she isn't among the models known to her. We also ran the scan three times and she reads as fully human."

"I sense a but."

"It's the chip, Ma'am. I know there's been several medical application for chip implants before the fall, but this is beyond anything we've seen, according to the Doc's report. And if she belongs to the 13th Tribe, they have been apart from humanity for so long, there might be all sorts of complications and conflicts we know nothing about. So far we have found none, she responds to our drugs and treatments, but..."

Roslyn nodded. "I believe I understand, Commander. You can just never know. And she is the only tangible proof and lead for the location of Earth that we've had in months."

"But Ma'am," Starbuck interjected, "if...no, when she wakes up we could just ask her."

"Major," Apollo said, shifting back to his official and, as Starbuck was to find out, at times abrasive persona, "you seem to have forgotten that we don't speak their language, nor do we know if she'll ever wake up again."

"That may be so, _Sir_," Starbuck said, with a tinge of insubordination that was sure to get a rise out of him, "but what else should we do? Dissect her brain and ask your CAG to interface with that chip of hers?"

They had both forgotten the third person in the room, and Roslyn was strangely fascinated with the slow moving train wreck right before her eyes.

"Maybe we should!" Apollo said, squaring his jaw, and even though he knew that he sounded like a petulant child, he couldn't help but feel a petty sense of triumph.

That was, until he realized that the woman desperately trying not to get noticed was the President of the Twelve Colonies, and the blush that threatened to run up his face was tempered by him not wanting to show weakness in front of Kara more than ever in front of the President.

Who, not knowing, not wanting to know what had caused this flareup, chose to ignore it.

"Commander, I hear you requested that we find out if a linguist is in the fleet?"

Apollo cleared his throat and was thankful that he had someone else to talk with.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"What makes you think that one might be of use?"

"For one, if they are the 13th Tribe then their language has to be related to ours in some degree, in fact I am surprised that it's totally unknown. Then, wouldn't have had contact with the colonies for centuries, and we didn't exactly get their copies of the scrolls to work with."

Roslyn tilted her head to the side and nodded.

"Fair enough, Commander. Have you..." she trailed off, as the readings on the monitor suddenly spiked, and the previously prone figure began to thrash against the restraints and the tubes and sensors. Between them, neither had realized that the pilot had been waking up, and now she was near hyperventilating, coughing against the oxygen tube that ran into her mouth, because whatever she may have expected, this was not it. The Doc and two medics rushed past the President and the two Officers, and when they stepped back, her readings had normalized and she was sedated.

The Doc stepped out and reported. After hearing it, Apollo stepped to the next intercom and was about to hail CIC, when Bojay added: "You know, Sir, I can't fault her for being so agitated. Imagine her position, what with her brain working as well as someone not having had his morning Posca after a night on the town. What she needs now is rest and a good night's sleep. We'll be leaving her in there, but I can say officially that I don't think there'll be

"Oh I agree. Keep an eye on her and call me immediately when something changes. Madame President, would you like to accompany me to CIC while I report this to the Admiral?"

"Thank you, Commander Apollo, I will."

On the way to CIC, all but leaving Starbuck to her own devices, Apollo couldn't help but ask.

"Ma'am, with all due respect, but why are you here?"

She knew him well enough to be able to tell that he would be mortified to know that his father had privately expressed his concerns about him to her, but she would have come anyway.

"I wanted have a look at our...guest. Also, I still value your opinion, Commander. Reports and pictures are one thing, but seeing for oneself.."

* * *

_Eight of the Cylon Stealth Raiders were dotted throughout around the Colonial Fleet, outside of direct DRADIS range of the two Battlestars. They had all but the most essential systems turned off, going so far as to deactivate the emergency hyperdrives so that it would require them thirty-tree minutes to spool them up. What they did do was listen in on Colonial wireless traffic. Through it they learned not much. It seemed that the Colonials had slapped 'it' with the highest security classification, which meant that they made heavy use of couriers, eased by the simple truth that the colonial fleet was swimming in fuel thanks to their recent finds in this very system. _

_But the Fleet's deployments that were observed over the next day made it clear that they were no longer searching for anything, beyond the normal patrol activity. Had they had any emotions, the guiding intelligences of the Raiders would have either been bored to tears or been content with not being fired upon, as was, they merely stood and observed. Neither of the groups in the system noticed or was due to find out about the third group of ships that jumped into the system about the same time the pilot has first awoken._

_The new ships, and the humans aboard them, were well aware of the Cylons and Colonials alike within seconds of ending their jumps. Unkown to the Colonials, the emergency beacon still operated, but since it used a type of communication the Colonials did not even know existed, and so the humans knew that their pilot had been picked up. Since they were clearly using extremely outdated vessels and did not belong to humanity's enemies by the looks of things, the small force settled down and was for the moment content to observe and like the Cylons, regularly sending reports back. Once the computers aboard the ships had deciphered and translated Standard Colonial, the nature of the rag-tag fugitive fleet became apparent, and they knew that if their pilot had survived thus far, she was not in any immediate danger. The Commander of the force thus followed procedure and sent a courier back to Joint Base Proxima for orders._

* * *

When she awoke for the second time, Bojay just happened to be in the room. He only saw that she was moving out of the corner of his eye, and before he had turned around completely to face the bed she was in, she had already ripped out most of the sensors. She was breathing properly on her own since first waking up, so at least she didn't have to remove an oxygen tube from her own throat.

By the time he had crossed Life Station, she was already half-sitting up, before her bodily strength failed her. She turned her head and stared at the doctor, who couldn't help but notice a set of very expressive green eyes. She spoke first, her voice croaking from disuse. Bojay stepped to the table and handed her a cup of water, which she gulped down in one fell swoop after a short taste. When she spoke again, she sounded better, but as had been expected, he did not understand a single word of what he found to be a language that sounded smoother than Standard Colonial. But judging by the tone of voice, she was asking him something, and he had a good idea as to what it was.

An orderly came in and Bojay snapped at him to get the Commander, XO and CAG, before turning back to his patient. In what he hoped was a soothing and trustworthy voice he said:"Calm down, you are safe. You are aboard the Colonial Battlestar _Pegasus_. I am Doctor Bojay and I am here to help you. You are safe."

Something in his voice calmed her down enough so that she allowed him to check the machines around her, clearly this wasn't the first time she was in a hospital.

Then, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she looked around as if desperately looking for something. She didn't find it, and for several minutes her eyes darted around the room, taking it all in. Bojay noticed that she didn't exactly relax, but at least she didn't look as frantic and scared as she had when first waking up. Of course her brain, while it didn't seem to have suffered any long-term damage, was probably still not working at full capacity, and Gods knew what sort of complications that chip could cause.

Her eyes focused on something, and when Bojay followed it, he saw that she was looking at a table standing against the opposite wall, and there was a clipboard and pen. Of course, one might not be able to talk, but more than once pictures were almost as good. As he handed her both, the CO, XO, CAG and the Linguist they had managed to find stamped into the room. He turned to them to hold them back, lest they scared he pilot again, but as it turned out, her military persona had taken over fully, because when he turned towards her again, she was busy scribbling away. As Bojay turned to Commander Adama, he heard the pilot's voice again. The picture she had drawn showed a rectangular item, with some sort of flag on it, and exclamation marks on the side.

"I know what that is!" Apollo exclaimed and the rest of them were treated to the strange sight of the CO positively running through the hatch, before returning with the black plastic device. It had been scanned and was not 'hot', in that it contained no known explosives, but no one could know what it did.

"Do you think that's wise, Sir?"

Apollo hesitated, the device in his right hand. He glanced down at it and then at Helo. "Someone has to extend the first bit of trust, Major."

With that, he took the two remaining steps and handed it to the thankful pilot, who gave him a thin smile in return as he rejoined the others.

She inspected it for a moment, probably checking it for signs of tampering. When this was accomplished to her satisfaction, she pressed a finger into the middle of the unmarked side of the device and suddenly a display appeared. She tapped a few commands into it, before putting it down in her lap, at the same time pulling herself up so that she leant back against the wall, half-sitting up. She said something more, and Apollo stepped forward again to introduce himself and his officers formally. Later on, this procedure would have to be repeated when the Admiral and the President arrived, but for the moment, this was it.

**tbc**

**Joint Base Proxima is not in Proxima Centauri, it's just a base that's been given that name as intelligence camouflage.**


	4. Chapter 3

**AN: To preclude questions, "The Passage" and events related to it never happened here.**

**Chapter 3**

Shortly after awakening for the second time, sheer exhaustion caught up with the pilot, and while she slept, the Colonials went about their daily routine, more or less, with at least two orderlies always keeping an eye on their guest.

Unknown to them, the device she had activated listened in, because one of it's many functions was the most sophisticated translation matrix Earth's scientists and programmers had devised. In it's travels to the stars, Terran humanity had encountered enough different languages to see the need for speedy translation, and for the ability to absorb a lot of information, such as languages, very fast.

The first part was taken care of by the software on the modern-day descendant of 21st Century Smart Phones, the second by the chip that most Earth military personnel had implanted into their brains, for this chip greatly enhanced the human ability to take in and absorb information, while drawing it's own power from body heat and bio-electric energy in the brain. While the Colonials talked, the pilot's PDA, or Personal Data Assistant, listened. It listened to the attendants, patients and the doctor in Life Station talking, it listened to the ship-wide announcements and it's internal communications system, and even to the wireless transmissions coming to and going from _Pegasus_. It then fed this information into the Quantum-circuitry inside, analysing the language while always taking in ever more information to aid it in this task.

That Colonial Standard seemed to have some relation to ancient Greek and Latin helped, though the device itself unable to care that this was about to prove several theoretical concepts that Earth's scientists had advanced almost since the Battlegroup Incident. As it was smaller and less powerful than the counterparts that existed on even the smallest warships in Earth's Navies it would take almost twenty hours (instead of at most ten on ship-sized systems) to decode the language, and that was fast because this one seemed to have some relation to several older Earth languages. Then another six hours to feed it into the pilot's chip, "if she were to adhere to normal (read: the most comfortable) procedures that existed for this type of technology.

Preferably this was done this way and while the person using that function was asleep, but not in any attempt to make use of outdated theory about sleep learning, and it would work as well if the recipient was awake. However users of this technology often perceived the process as slightly uncomfortable, in that it caused a phenomena akin to sensory overload, which was exponentially increased the closer the user got to the edge of the maximum bandwidth, that is, if the chip was within the legal limits. Beyond that, this could cause not merely discomfort but actual brain damage. Bitter experience had revealed the need for such legislation, and of course Navy-issue chips stayed within those bounds. Another drawback was that skills thus acquired tended to fade after a time if not regularly exercised, which was why there was still a conventional education system for military and civilian life alike. It was not the only application for the chips, but by far the most used.

So when she set it to maximum-speed learning, she knew that she would have 'a bit of a headache' for several hours afterwards just as she'd had when cramming for exams in the old way during her younger years, but these were extraordinary circumstances.

At the very least those people, whoever they were, looked to be human, and were clearly not moggies. Human communities outside Alliance Space were not exactly unknown, there were dozens of independents, but there at least everyone, or most, spoke Standard English as a second language. Those people didn't so they had either been father out than anyone could possibly be or extremely isolated. Either way, she needed to be able to talk to them in an instant.

The ship she was on did give off a very military vibe, reinforced by some of those...Officers wearing what clearly were military uniforms, so at least they would be able to defend themselves, to a degree, but she hadn't seen all of their technology yet. She also needed for them to understand her before they jumped to a place or a system where she was beyond reach of any possible SAR So she had opted for discomfort for the sake of expedience and closed her eyes, willing the drums in her skull to stop.

At some point during that afternoon Doc Bojay was nearly treated to a heart attack when out of the blue a voice said in fluent, but somewhat accented Colonial: "Doctor, I would like to speak to this ship's commanding Officer, please."

After staring at her for a moment and picking up the tray of instruments he'd dropped in his surprise, all the while being under her patient stare, he positively ran out of the room to the next intercom, not seeing the smirk that broke out on her face. But it disappeared quickly. Hell's teeth, she was a Naval Aviator, not a First Contact Expert! Nothing to do but fall back on her training and hope for the best, and even though she didn't feel like a PoW, some of the things learnt then might come in useful.

But, as an Officer she was expected to deal with the situation as best she could.

First things first, she had to get access to the rest of her equipment and then get back to then fleet. She leaned over to the table beside the bed and picked up her PDA. The touch-screen lit up and she scanned the communications log. As she had expected, it had detected mostly EM traffic. It confirmed her initial impressions. Well, there was nothing to do but her best, which meant, she had to wing it in a situation where normally teams of diplomats were present. She hated first contacts. When she started to check some of the other functions, she came across one that made her face light up.

The doctor returned and awkwardly asked if there was anything he could do for her.

"It would be nice if I could have a certain item from my equipment."

So when the XO appeared less than a minute later, the CO still being in a Raptor on his way back from _Galactica_, he saw the pilot sitting up in bed, her shoulder-length red hair pulled pack in a ponytail not unlike Athena's and drinking something hot and steaming from a cup.

Helo frowned, but since he'd been quickly briefed by the doc, so he was prepared when she gave an impish smile, before saying: "I don't think that a cup of Tea would endanger your ship, Sir."

As if to emphasise her point, she took another sip from the cup, before setting it down on the table and placing a sheet of paper on to to help retain some of the heat.

Helo reigned in his own curiosity and forced himself to wait until Lee got here. All his many questions could wait until then.

They didn't have to wait overly long.

Apollo walked into the room, and after a short, awkward moment, he introduced himself. The pilot closed her eyes for a second and to Helo it seemed as if she was marshalling inner reserves of calm, something he could understand, given the situation.

"I..." she coughed, and took the last sip of her drink, "I am Lieutenant-Commander Olivia Clayworth."

She paused as if for effect, even though she knew that it would probably mean nothing to those people.

"Royal Navy."

Since she was on their ship, she said nothing more and instead waited for Commander Adama to continue.

Apollo picked up the cue. "If I may ask, Lieutenant-Commander," he said, briefly wondering where her rank lay in the Colonial system, "but..what were you doing here?"

Clayworth wondered how much she should..could tell them, but it was a fair bet they had found her ship, and in the end, she was still dependant on the goodwill of those people, something that the fleet had learned hard could not be taken for granted.

"We were on a scouting mission for...our group. We jumped into the system, but were almost immediately attacked by enemy Space Superiority Fighters. They reduced us to little more than wreckage, but didn't follow through. They RTSed and jumped from the system. My guess..." a pang of pain as she remembered her Nav, and she cleared her throat, "my guess is that they were doing a similar job than we were."

What she didn't say was also a good chance that they were being pulled back to deal with the latest human move in the war.

"I checked my Navigator's vitals and saw that he was dead even before I ejected."

The Colonial Commander looked at his officers, and she knew that a message had been passed without any words.

"Is there a chance that the..enemy will return to this system?"

"I don't know, I have no knowledge of the overall picture," she said, looking down at her hands and hoping that they didn't detect her half-lie, "but if they haven't returned already the chances are slim. It wouldn't fit with their operating patterns of the past. They've been trying to find a way past our defences and straight to Earth since this whole bloody damn war began."

Without knowing it she had struck a chord with the Colonials present. Clayworth was to find out shortly, because when she looked up again, it suddenly seemed as if they were hanging on her every word.

"Earth? Are you speaking of...Earth? You have been to _Earth_?"

She was uncertain why this could be such big news to them, except...she suddenly had an idea, a report, a totally bonkers idea she had first read about as a young subbie fresh out of the Naval College and that periodically made the rounds of the more sensationalist papers. It couldn't be true, now could it? But even if that _very_ long shot was true, it only reinforced the simple truth that this was a job for a team of Alliance First Contact experts.

"I was born there." she said aloud, sounding far more resolute and assured of herself than she felt, and suddenly deciding that if she wanted to get home this side of the King's Birthday, she needed to extend a sign of trust of her own. "A small village a few stops outside a town called Ipswich."

She sensed that the three men in the room needed some time to digest this, so she said nothing more. Instead she thought back to the last time she'd been there, and suddenly felt a pang of homesickness. When she looked at the Commander and his XO again, she had decided that she would get back there, and sharpish at that.

"Are you certain?"

"I am, Sir." she said, and her earlier hunch was reinforce when the Commander positively bolted from the room before returning with...the picture.

"Is this it?"

She grinned, and said: "For the most part at least."

_The Allied Task Force well aware that the comm-chatter that exploded from the ship they had identified as Pegasus to Galactica signified that something had happened, and when the recce drones that were placed above, below and beside the Colonial Fleet relayed this to their motherships with tight-beam communications, the Rear Admiral in overall command since he had reinforced the original two Destroyers was delighted, that Lieutenant-Commander Clayworth was alive and being treated well. Of course there was the issue of a first contact situation for which she was not trained, though had a set of orders to choose from and execute for situations that were similar to this one. So he sent the Reuben James back to base with a report to request instructions from the Admiral. Meanwhile he continued to observe. It was then that they noted that several of the other watchdogs had initiated short thruster burns, so that within the next eight hours or so, they would have coasted outside the detection range of whatever ERS system the Colonials used and could jump without being detected. By the Colonials that was._

_The twelve British and two remaining American ships in the system were spaced so that getting past them was something that not even the Moggies could have done in the Colonial's place. Of course observations such as this one weren't new to either Navy, only the target was. Standing orders to keep their Fuchida Jumpdrive cores on five-minute standby, meaning that they would be able to execute a microjump and assume formation around the flagship, the Escort Carrier Belfast within five minutes of getting the word._

_For the Rear Admiral things more and more looked like he would have to act on his own accord sooner rather than later, not that he relished that. After all, there were important matters to consider even if one forgot the War he had and the war those people seemed to be having. That they were in some sort of conflict was obvious from the constant Standing Air Patrols they were running, and from the intercepted wireless traffic. How did the saying go? From the frying pan into the fire?_

One advantage of having the Fleet concentrated like this was that a Raptor trip from one Battlestar to the other didn't take very long. Apollo stepped aboard _Galactica_ for the fifth time in the last three days. And for the fifth time his father had deemed it proper to have the CAG greet the only other Battlestar Commander left in the fleet. He wished it wasn't so, but asking the Admiral to stop would make it necessary why he wanted it to be so, and Apollo wasn't really sure he was ready to admit this to himself, never mind the Admiral.

So, he decided to be a big boy, and suck it up.

That the person around which this whole meeting was going to rotate was being looked over by Cottle while still being in the Raptor didn't help, and he had the strong suspicion that she had only agreed to it because it was a condition that Bojay had stated in exchange for not confining her to bed by some Marines.

"Does she really speak our language already?"

Ah, good old Starbuck, straight to the point...

Apollo shook that train of thought away and instead forced himself to assume his Commander's persona.

"She does. If not for a slight accent, she'd be able to pass in the high society of Caprica City without any problem. She has some issues with slang, but other than that..."

Clayworth climbed out of the Raptor with a bag hanging from her left shoulder and seemed to be oblivious to the looks everyone on the deck was giving her. Instead she studied the battered appearance of the Vipers and Raptors undergoing maintenance with a trained eye. Thanks to the production line aboard _Pegasus_ it wasn't as bad as it used to be. The modified were still difficult to fly at best, but Athena and Starbuck had spent almost all of their free time since New Caprica with trying to find a solution for the problem. Training standards had increased considerably since then, but the software... For some reason Apollo was convinced that those new would be needed.

Her eyes fell on the remains of her ship, and Starbuck nodded to the Marines that looked at her serachingly as Clayworth stepped closer. She ran her hands over the bumps, bruises and shot holes of the hull where the plates hadn't been removed and lingered over the patch on one of the tail rudders that was the same as the one she wore on her left shoulder. She murmured something and Starback instinctively knew that she was thanking the ship for taking her that far. Clayworth sighed heavily before turning back around on her heels.

"Very well then. Let us proceed."

The meeting was extremely informal, in that only the Admiral and the President were in the room, aside from Apollo and Lieutenant-Commander Clayworth.

"Sir, Madame President, I request access to your communication equipment." was the first thing she said after introductions were exchanged. The Colonials had expected to be able to ask a few questions about Earth and the 13th Tribe first."

"Why is that, Lieutenant-Commander?" Adama asked, almost stumbling over the unfamiliar rank, "I hoped we could ask some questions first."

"Sir, I understand that, I really do. But you and I are in what we term a first contact situation, for which I am not qualified. My superiors would not thank me if I caused an interstellar incident." she replied, letting out the part in which Their Lordships wouldn't be too pleased with her as was, but in the end have to acknowledge that she had been thrust into this more or less against her will. Never mind the Alliance External Relations Office.

President Roslyn glanced at Adama and then at their guest. "From where I am standing, you are doing a very good job already."

Clayworth smiled, but that didn't last. "Yes, Ma'am, maybe. But King's regulations state that 'any officer or other rank not qualified for first contact situations is to hand off to qualified personnel at the earliest opportunity."

"So why do you need access to our communications then?"

"Because, Admiral, I have knowledge that there is a British, or Alliance Task Force in this system already."

"WHAT?"

"Yes, Sir." she said, ignoring the shock on the face of the Colonial Officers. Had she been looking at this from the outside, she would have understood their position. They had had the closest possible sensor watch on the fleet and this part of the system, and yet there was a large foreign formation that could have attacked them from pretty much every angle at once and they had not known.

As was, she pointed to the PDA that was placed back in the right hip-pocket. "This device can't send a signal strong enough, but it is designed to receive the counter-signal that is sent by Search and Rescue groups to any detected emergency beacon."

"And I gather you have detected this signal?"

"I have, Sir. And it is more than likely that they have already sent back for instructions in case I don't answer them within the next twelve hours."

Adama glanced at his son, and he knew that Lee was thinking the same as him. The implications were frightening. For one the 13th Tribe, and it was more than likely it was them, was used to this sort of situation, at least enough so that their military had established standing guidelines, and it was highly unlikely that they were fractured enough to ever have needed it among themselves.

But he had never been someone to jump to conclusions when he could avoid it, he liked to have firm evidence, something to bite his teeth into. As he glanced over at the President, he could see that she wasn't quite as willing to wait for answers.

Adama had a good idea what she wanted to ask. "

"What would happen..."

"If I weren't making contact? Well, they would reveal themselves to you and then sternly demand that I be either given the opportunity to contact you or be released immediately, along with the remains of my craft. Then they would demand to speak with whoever is leading you. If neither of those things happened, things might...escalate a bit."

The colonials understood that it was a considerable understatement.

"Very well then," Adama said, and with a nod, directed everyone to move proceedings to CIC. Communications was then directed to set the emitters to maximum output and to transmit in the clear. Clayworth ignored the air of hesitant expectancy around her, totally unaware of all the rumours about her that were flying through the fleet. She had no idea how the President's office was constantly pestered with questions, that Vice President Zarek had only barely been dissuaded from coming today with the reporters in tow or that her message would spark of a series of events that would affect her country and her planet as well as the Colonials more than she could imagine.

She picked up the headset that was handed to her and said in English:

"Contact Signal one-one-niner-able, request authentication procedure, over."

Much to her surprise it took less than five minutes for someone to reply, not knowing that one of the drones had relayed it to the ship.

_"__Acknowledged. Code Group two-seven-niner-item-charlie-one-one-baker. Authenticate."_

Clayworth reached for one of the pockets of her flight suit, pulling out a sheet of paper before scanning it for the countersign. A glance at the many readouts showed her that suddenly about a dozen new contacts appeared at the very edge of their detection range.

"Countersign Code Group two-seven-baker-zero-one-zero-able-dog-charlie. Authenticate."

_"__Authentication confirmed. Rear Admiral Inch, HMS Belfast. Welcome back to the fleet, Commander."_

She sighed with relief and suppressed some happy tears.

"Thank you. Sir, I have to report a Code 6 first contact situation."

_"__We are aware of that, Commander. The particular procedures have been activated almost 25 hours ago. Be advised, there are several craft, tentatively identified as Cylon. We would have revealed ourselves to you within the next two hours, as we think they might be out to get reinforcements. Over."_

"Acknowledged. Hold one, _Belfast_."

tbc

**I know, the naming of the PDA isn't very creative. As to 'Standard English', to them, we would sound like someone from the 1ate 1880s or so would sound to us, i.e. a bit antiquated, but understandable, while we would probably still understand them as well. I believe that with the need to keep an extremely wide-spread humanity mutually understandable, there would be a standardized form of English that would change only very, very slowly, regional dialects aside. I'm no linguist, so that's a WAG to an extent, but I think it could happen like this. It would develop slowly though, akin to how today English more and more drifts towards the American standard thanks to Hollywood and the Internet. Of course here, for various reasons, the Queen's English is the international standard. **

**Re , I think that it's implied that they 'refitted' the by mostly ripping out the navigation software that included the backdoor. Why they never tried to re-write the software of those craft to compensate for that is one of the things I refer to as the Stupid Virus. Yes, it would have been difficult, but damn, why was that never even suggested? In the months since new Caprica TTL they had the leisure to do things like that. I could see Athena suggesting and be able to do this.**

**RTS = Return to Ship**

**ERS = Enhanced Ranging System. Terran counterpart to DRADIS, albeit much more powerful and long-ranged.**

**Fuchida Jumpdrive = Terran term for your basic Hyperdrive tech as seen on nBSG. Named after the leader of the team that developed it.**


	5. Chapter 4

**AN: According to the Battlestarwiki's nBSG rank table, Adama is a Rear Admiral. **

**Chapter 4**

_Cylon Basestar, somewhere in uncharted Deep Space_

It had taken the Cylons less than a minute to de-code the signal from the scouts, and another to jump four Base Stars back to where they had come from, but that had left the one carrying what passed for Cylon command in the region behind, not for any sinister reason, but simply because it's hyperdrive was damaged, and thus non-functional. The opportunity to discuss the developments with relative ease could not be passed up, and yet it still almost took them an hour to decide to do anything.

The Cavils were obviously delighted by the news the scouts brought back, and the fives and threes joined in when they heard the last few moments of of wireless traffic the scouts had copied before jumping out. That the unknown ships communicated in perfect Colonial only furthered them. "After all," Caprica Cavil pointed out, "why and how should they speak Colonial if they weren't the 13th Tribe?"

"The original twelve tribes have dialects of their own, and in the past those could have rated as seperate languages, and..." Caprica Six was interrupted by Cavil.

"What the frack does this have to do with anything?"

She sighed inwardly, gritted her teeth and stared at Cavil.

"My point is, the humans have a talent for languages and languages divert after a while in isolation."

"Who told you that, your new favourite pet?" he sneered, but Caprica Six didn't rise to the challenge.

"No. It was part of my cover identity to have an 'interest' in ancient Colonial dialects, and this is why I and my line know this."

"So what is it you are saying?"

"What I am saying is that we shouldn't jump to conclusions, because I have..detected some oddities in the way those 13th Tribe ships talk."

Cavil leaned back, as if surprised that the Sixes were agreeing with his line for once. But, one had to make sure. "So you agree that those people are the 13th Tribe?"

"Of course I do! What else could they be?"

She thanked god for her ability to lie so effectively. But at the moment only Boomer and some of the Eights were with her...she loathed to call it a faction, but that was what it was, so acting openly was ill-advised. For the moment the best bet was to play along, with just the right amount of insolence and arguing to prevent the others from becoming suspicious. It was amazing, the humanoid Cylons became more and more...human. Their factionalism was part of what had the One's reason for being so disgusted by them, and yet their very quest to rid the galaxy of the human race was creating the previously unthinkable within Cylon society.

She wondered what Baltar would think about this, but when she turned to him, he was leaning against the wall and following his newest hobby, talking to himself. This time she sighed for real, but it was then that he came out of whatever state he was in and when he saw that she kept staring at him behind the back of the others, he only gave her a 'what do I know?' shrug, but at least he stood up to follow the conversation that was going on around him.

Turning back to the conversation in the room, Caprica Six noticed that Boomer had been speaking. "...their capabilities. The data the scouts brought back shows that the ships they have are almost as large as a Battelstar."

"Almost being the operative word here." Cavil said and looked around at the others with a triumphant look. "Don't you see? The 13th Tribe is _weak_. Their ships are smaller and less capable than the Colonials, never mind ours!"

It was Baltar who broke the awkward silence that ensued. "Excuse me, but what gives you that idea? For all we know the 13th Tribe could have avoided the...issues that held Colonial technology back."

"Excuse me?" Cavil's voice was deceptively level, and his face looked dangerously serene.

"I..I.. .." Baltar paused and swallowed, summoning his reserves of courage, "I mean, for the sake of argument, let's suppose those people are the 13th Tribe, and they arrived on Earth way back when. What evidence do we have that they followed the Colonial pattern? It could be that never developed AI technology." What he didn't say that it was just as likely that they had managed to prevent any risings, but he valued his life too much to voice that. 'Oh Gaius, if only they knew...' came the voice of his brain-Six. For once, he ignored her and spoke aloud.

"If they hadn't...what was it that you said," he paused and glanced at the Five in the room, "'looked back to the past to protect themselves', then Gods know what they could have achieved."

"Are you saying that they could defeat us?" Cavil replied, in the same way as before.

"N..No. No, not at a..all. What I mean is that it would be prudent to not assume things and plan for all eventualities. All eventualities."

Under the stare of the humanoid Cylons he retreated back to his spot against the wall, but he still listened attentively.

"And anyway," Boomer said, ignoring the awkwardness in the room, "there is a point to that. Being cautious...no, that's the wrong word, being [I]prepared[/I] costs us nothing and could gain us so much. You should remember, we have only a limited number of ships in the area." The last sentence was directed at Cavil and the various Fives and both grudgingly agreed. "Well, when this mission returns, we should know more. Let's hope they managed to get us some information before they destroyed them. As Eight and Six would be sure to point out, we have yet to actually find Earth itself."

Caprica Six glanced at Boomer and raised a single eyebrow. Then, turning back she addressed the room at large. "Is there anything else we can discuss before the attack force returns?"

There wasn't, and the meeting dissolved.

All four of the Basestars of the attack force returned three hours later. At first Cavil and the Fives were jubilant, as all four had returned and showed no sign of battledamage.

However, that changed soon.

"So, did you destroy the humans? Did you find out where Earth is?"

The Three commanding the Basestars looked decidedly uncomfortable when she answered.

_"__No, not exactly."_

"WHAT? WHY THE FRACK NOT?" Cavil yelled, and then the Three began to explain.

_System CM7789U, several hours earlier_

To say that Clayworth's message made CIC explode into a beehive of frantic activity would be an understatement, and Adama was pleasantly surprised to see that when he turned to her to ask to speak to whomever she had been talking to, she was already holding the headset in his direction, with a hushed 'He'll understand you.'.

"This is Admiral William Adama of the Colonial Fleet, with who am I speaking?"

_"__Sir, I am Rear Admiral Henry Inch of the Royal Navy. I gather Lieutenant-Commander Clayworth has told you of our findings?"_

Right down to things that mattered. Good. Adama sensed that he could come to like this man.

"She has, and I have to tell you, my first and foremost duty is to defend this fleet against any threat. My ships will fight."

_"__I understand that, but..."_

The reason for the pause became obvious. Suddenly half a dozen very, very faint jump signatures became visible on the DRADIS display, and they did not belong to any Colonial craft.

_"__Well, that's torn it, Admiral Adama. My CSO tells me that our watchdogs just decided not to wait and jumped out."_

"I know, we detected them as well."

Things may have changed, but most hadn't. He took off the headset.

"Colonel Tigh, action stations, set Condition One throughout the fleet. Issue the emergency jump co-ordinates to the fleet."

"Yes, Sir."

Even as the Condition One alarm blared throughout the ship, he placed the headset back in position. "Admiral Inch, I will do what I have to do, and can not let you stop me."

He had utterly forgotten the President's presence in CIC, but her voice instantly reminded him. "Admiral, whatever happens in the next days, we are dependent on their good graces. Shouldn't we at least consider what _they_ want?"

She was right of course. "Admiral?"

_"__Well of course I have no command authority over your ships, and I apologize for my words, but I formally request that you move your civilian ships to a safer location. If there is a fight here I'd rather they not be caught in the crossfire."_

A bad beginning, but at least that 13th Tribe Admiral was willing to see the error of his ways, and the least thing he could do was to be polite.

"Very well. But you should know, as soon as they come within nuke range of my ships, I will open fire."

Inch hesitated for a moment, truly trying to appreciate the man's position. The refugee fleet was a popular motif in fiction, but no human Navy or civilian ship had encountered one since the Kri'Tahan exodus almost a century ago, the first and so far only time. The Germans had handled the situation by the seat of their pants, and while things had in the end worked out, it had been a damn near run thing.

_"__Very well, Admiral."_ Inch sighed and then paused for a while, presumably consulting his staff, _"we don't have much time, so this is what we would do..."_

And he hastily outlined the plan, one which Adama knew he had no choice but to accept, both because the immediate tactical position was bad from any possible angle, and because he wanted, no needed to be in those people's good graces.

"Let's do it. It's not as if I had any other choice."

_"__Well, all war, or in this case, preventing one is based on deception, and we've fought enough wars in our history to make us very, very good at it."_

It took several minutes of frantic calculations, but by the time the Cylons arrived, both fleets had barely made it into position. In the minutes before the Cylons arrived, Adama studied the British Task Force. Clayworth, knowing that she would be stuck aboard _Galactica_ for some time yet due a whole variety of reasons, was not about to offer any unsolicited advice. Mere Lieutenant-Commanders didn't offer it to flag officers without being asked first.

"Lieutenant-Commander, what can you tell me about this Admiral Inch?"

Of course, one didn't openly gossip about them to one's best friend, never mind anyone from an independent, in front of what seemed to be most of the senior military and political leadership. But then, this was their first encounter with His Majesty's Navy.

"Well, I'm not sure..."

Adama held up his right hand in an abating gesture. "You won't have to betray any confidences to me or to anyone. I understand."

He glanced at the President who was still in CIC, close enough to the action to be able to observe everything, yet far enough to the side to not get under anyone's feet.

"Will he fight if he is pushed?"

Clayworth considered this for a moment. Inch had not been with the 7th (BR) Fleet for long, but his reputation spoke for itself.

"I believe he will, Sir. I have not seen action under his command, but his reputation speaks for itself. Besides, the Royal Navy rarely backs down if threatened."

Adama nodded without taking his eyes from the DRADIS readouts. The two largest British ships had launched fighters, indicating that they were similar to a Battlestar, if somewhat smaller. The fighters were hovering over the fleet before assuming their station in front of the roughly rhombus-shaped formation the British had adopted.

Upon being asked, Clayworth told him that it was a formation to give maximum coverage for their integrated point defence network, ignoring Adama's cringe at 'network' while still allowing the two ships she identified as Escort Carriers to use their 'bowchasers', or forward armament.

While they waited, _Galactica_'s CIC was silent, even when a small courier boat arrived with orders that gave Inch 'a free hand, short of war'. None of the Colonial Officers held much faith in the idea that Inch's idea would work, but when Gaeta and several others had thought about bringing it up, Adama had merely let his gaze run around the room, and it had told them what he thought of their ideas, however much he might personally approve of them.

"DRADIS contact! I read one...three...four Basestars, Sir. They are launching raiders!"

"Launch the Vipers, but keep them at Weapons hold. To all Fleet, standby to execute emergency jump."

Starbuck would be pissed, but if the plan worked out, none of their people would have to die today.

For the Viper pilots it was the first true, hard evidence of the ships their new friends had. To Starbuck it was...humbling in a way. She had long thought the Vipers were nimble, but the British fighters...even though they were longer and a bit wider than a Viper, they literally danced around their Colonial counterparts.

Their fighters were painted in an odd gray-blue, with what she guessed to be their insignia, a red dot on a larger, dark blue one on the wings. It was a concept foreign to the Colonials, they hadn't used national insignia since the Articles of Colonization.

Their relation to the scoutcraft was undeniable. Their nose too was pointed, with Canards and forward-swept wings more and more looking like a common design feature, along with the dual tail rudders, right down to the angle at which they were fixed.

The feature that distinguished them the most from a Colonial Viper was that their main gun armament was fixed in the nose, immediately in front of the cockpit. Besides that they had ordnance bays similar to the Cylons, along with two small turrets, one placed under the nose and one behind the tail rudder over the atmosphere-cabaple engines, and Starbuck guessed that they were used for point defence or to enhance the firing arc the pilot would have at his disposal.

After showing off to the suddenly envious Colonial pilots, the fighters placed themselves in the position allotted to them, in two groups to each 'side' of the British formation, relative to the plan of the system, with the Vipers assuming a covering formation around the two Battlestars. There, they waited.

When the Cylon Basestars jumped in, they were puzzled at first to find the Colonial fleet nowhere near where they had expected it. Instead, the ships of the Colonial refugees were moving away from the system primary at low sublight speeds, beyond an area where remnants of the asteroid that had destroyed the planet floated around.

The issue however were their two Battlestars. And the second Task Force that they had formed behind.

Said Task Force was of course the 13th Tribe Fleet, and the true reason why the Basestars were here. The Cylon force had just passed the destroyed planet's sole moon, and the Three in command was just about to fire a first, small spread of nukes to test the human's technology and resolve, when suddenly the communication frequencies, Cylon and Colonial alike, were flooded with a voice that spoke perfect, if somewhat accented, Colonial.

_"__Attention, Cylon Task Force. This is Admiral Henry Inch. You are entering space under the protection of Royal Navy on behalf of the Terran Alliance. Turn around and vacate this system immediately. If you approach this Task Force, we will be forced to open fire. Respond."_

Of course the Three had no intention of doing as they demanded, and instead she had one of her Basestars fire four Nukes at the impudent ships. What the Cylons had not counted on was the advantage over them that the Terran's integrated point defence network gave them. Born out of nearly two decades of war, it was beyond anything the Cylons or the Colonials had ever seen. The layers of jamming, fast, highly agile missiles and high-speed lasers, all independent from whatever main armament the ship had, had no problems at all with the Cylon missiles.

As it happened all four missiles were targeted at a single ship, the American Destroyer USS _Walker_. However, the Cylon nuclear missiles were far more primitive by several orders or magnitude than those the latest revision of the point defence system was designed to defeat.

The type of emissions the missile's seeker heads where thus that _Walker_'s missile defence officer was confident that none of them would get past his own birds. He turned out to be right, none of the Cylon nukes made it even a quarter of the way across the missile defence zone.

The Three was about to fire a full salvo, but the Terrans beat her to it. The two light Carriers fired their spinal lasers. Those weapons, so new that _Belfast_ had been re-fitted with them less than two months ago, and the first time in human history where the various technological problems had been solved, they were still so large and energy intensive that only ships larger than cruisers would be refitted and then only one per ship for those along the lines of _Belfast_ or two for the Super-Carriers or the Dreadnoughts.

Intended to be used during single-ship actions, to finish of cripples after an engagement or to engage fixed, heavily armoured targets such as space stations, the emitters each generated a beam of coherent electromagnetic radiation that hit one of the Asteroid fragments close enough to the Cylon Task Force that everyone could see where the rock began to glow from being heated up before exploding from the reaction of the heat with some of it's contents.

Their range range almost more amazing to the Cylons. The Terrans had blown up that rock from a range where the Cylon missile launchers could not reply effectively, if at all. They didn't know that it had been at the extreme effective range for the Terrans as well, but no one told them. As it was, the Terran Admiral spoke again.

Cavil barely contained his rage. He had already decided that this particular Three would be boxed the next time she died, but at the moment he needed whatever information she had.

"Has it ever occurred to you that they may have planted charges on those rocks, to make you [I]believe[/I] that they have some sort of energy weapon?"

_"__It has, but they did that two more times to emphasise their point._" she replied, leaving out the part where she had been scared witless by the prospect, _"But anyway, when we stopped to reorganize our attack, their Admiral said that something called the Terran Alliance would be willing to act as a neutral mediator between us and the Colonials."_

"Negotiate? WITH HUMANS? Never." came the predictable and expected reply, even though Boomer and Caprica Six both made a mental note to follow up on this.

_"__But that was not all of it. I launched the rest of our Raiders, but then...more of their ships arrived."_

Cavil had intellectually known that it was highly unlikely that the group the Colonials had stumbled over was their entire fleet, but when he heard what the second group of 13th Tribe ships had been like he began to realize that defeating the 13th Tribe and destroying Earth would require a bigger effort than he had at first thought. Maybe boxing the Three for retreating in the face of such a force wasn't the right answer after all, what with the second, heavier group jumping in right behind her.

He studied the DRADIS scans, the message the second group had sent and communications chatter between the 13th Tribe ships and the Colonials they had picked up. "Tell me," he said to the room in general, "has any of you ever heard of something called _Ark Royal_?"

tbc


	6. Chapter 5

**AN: For the life of me I can't remember which is port and which is starboard, and I have to look it up every time I use it. Also, bear in mind please that a lot of the technologies here are cutting edge and brand new for the Terrans, from the spinal lasers to the holotank. Also, bear in mind that the events of of the first third of this chapter take place over the course of a couple of minutes.**

**Chapter 5**

On the battlebridge of His Majesty's Ship _Belfast_ the situation a few minutes after the Cylons had jumped out was one of expectancy. The Task Group that had jumped in at such an opportune moment, just when it had seemed as if fighting might break out for real, was under the command of another Rear Admiral, who, though technically senior to Inch by a few weeks, had ceded authority to him as the first in-system.

Inch intended to move every Allied and Colonial ship from the system at once, because even though it was unlikely the Moggies returned, it wasn't impossible either. Ironically the Colonials would present the largest problem to this. He didn't know much about the history that had brought them here, but their entire fleet gave the impression of a hunted animal. He had a hunch that this would complicate things immensely, but he had his orders and King's regulations to follow. He looked over to where the the Staff Communications Officer and his duty watch crew were sitting, backs to the lift in the port-aft corner. To their left sat the navigation duty watch, and opposite them, on the other side of the huge and brand-new holotank of the sort that were replacing the standard main displays in the fleet, sat the Tactical and Sensor watches. Lined along the two remaining walls were the stations manned by auxiliary damage control and the like, while up forward, facing the now redundant main display, sat the auxiliary helm controls.

He pressed a control on the armrest of his chair which gave him a direct line to his Flag Captain on the bridge.

_"The plot is clear, Admiral."_ she replied, only the faintest trace of an accent showing her earth-born Canadian heritage, _"We have only the Colonial ships and our own on the plot."_

"Very well, Captain. Advise the rest of the Task Force to form up around us, and give my compliments to Rear Admiral Thompson on his timely arrival. I intend to move this whole mess to a less exposed system soon, so keep the Jumpdrive on standby. I will contact the Colonials soon, and I would like you and your staff to listen in when I do. Flag, out."

_"Yes, Sir. Bridge out."_

"Sparks, get me the _Galactica_."

By now they needed no introductions.

_"Congratulations, Admiral. We all expected that you would have to fight after all."_

"For a moment it looked that way to us over here as well."

The next question came with a reluctance that was obvious even over the far less than perfect wireless connection.

_"What happens next, Admiral? I need to know what to tell my fleet before we move anywhere or do anything. The rumour mill is bad enough as it is."_ Adama paused, and Inch thought that it probably was because the other Officer needed to gather his thoughts and decide how to phrase the next question. _"I need something I can tell them because some of them just might ignore any orders given by me or the President without an explanation of some sort. I need something to tell them."_

Inch knew that Adama had concerns that no British Naval Officer since the times of the Spanish Armada had ever had to face, but he couldn't help but feel at having to expose his ships and his people at the behest of someone he didn't even know. At least if the orders came from on high, they were a known quantity, but those Colonials were a complete and utter wildcard, and that in a system that was listed as disputed at the best of times.

But then, how would he act if he led a rag-tag, fugitive fleet such as that one?

"Very well then. But I must insist that we get a move on as soon as we can. This system is by no means safe."

Both men knew he wasn't referring to the Cylons. The Colonials knew nothing about the conflict Earth and her colonies were embroiled in except that it existed.

_"I'll do my best, Admiral."_

"And there's something else too, Admiral Adama. Bitter experience has taught us the value of quarantine regulations after someone has had long-term exposure to an unknown environment."

_"You are referring to Lieutenant-Commander Clayworth I presume? She already told us something in this regard. When she and her ship were brought aboard, we enacted our own quarantine procedures, rest assured of that, Admiral."_

The slight bite in the other man's voice especially in the last sentence reminded Inch that for all outward appearances, Adama represented the military of a sovereign state, albeit a very small and shaky one. Because of that he deserved a modicum of respect.

"I am sorry, Admiral." he said. He leaned forward in his chair and wished that the Colonials had visual communications, like every Allied ship. With voice only it was hard to convince someone of one's sincerity. "I truly am, but regulations required me to say that. But all things considered, she is perfect for what I intend to say next."

He paused, trying to gather his thoughts, and realized after almost half a minute that the line was still open.

"Besides, I would like to request permission to station a liaison officer more or less permanently with you. Since Lieutenant-Commander Clayworth is already present aboard your ship and acclimatized to your environment.."

_"You would request that she be accepted as such until further notice, am I right?"_

Adama was a sharp one, that much was certain. Inch grinned.

"Indeed I would. If there was any problem from us to you, we would probably have seen signs of it by now, and she has probably been pumped full of anti-biotics by both her suit before the air supply completely failed and later by your doctors. Could you please put her on the line? Least thing I can do is tell her myself that she's stuck away from home until further notice."

_"Your request is granted, Admiral, and gladly at that. Galactica Actual, out."_

Adama obliged, and even though he heard only one half of the following conversation, he could tell that she was not pleased. Not that he faulted her, if he understood one thing then it was separated from one's home and normal surroundings, at least she knew it wouldn't be permanent. In the end she accepted her orders more or less willingly. With a small, almost imperceptible sigh, she placed the headset back down on the map table. She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed again, in a show of resignation and exasperation with military officialdom that she would have never allowed herself had she been functioning at 100 percent, Adama thought.

"Sir," she said, "I have been ordered to officially notify you that in about twenty minutes a shuttle will be requesting clearance to land. It will be carrying official orders for me and some of my belongings that I will need during my stay, mostly uniforms and such things. Due to King's regulations, it will be necessary to allow no one but myself to approach the shuttle when it lands. Since it would not actually stay here very long, disruption would be minimal."

She looked at him, and then gave a short, sharp, laugh.

"I hate to be an inconvenience like this, but the Admiral has always been stricter in enforcing those regulations than anyone I know. It's hardly surprising, he was first responder during the _Lantree_] incident."

Somehow Adama didn't want to know what had happened then. "No problem there, Lieutenant-Commander. It'll be arranged."

"Thank you, Sir. Anything for an opportunity to get out of this monkey-suit and back into a comfortable Number 3 uniform."

* * *

The shuttle, when it arrived, was not quite what Starbuck had expected. As CAG she was of course on hand to meet the first working 13th Tribe vessel of any sort that landed on _Galactica_], however brief that contact was. She also suspected that all those maintenance people weren't there for the off-chance that something happened. Rumours had always run through the ship faster than the speed of light, but the President's fleet-wide announcement that there would be a press conference later that afternoon had done nothing to slow it down.

And the appearance of the Shuttle hadn't helped either.

As she watched it come in for landing, she was struck by the difference in design philosophy between it and the fighters she had seen.

Where those had been with a certain grace and even beauty as they danced around her Viper, the shuttle was clearly function over form. Little more than a box with two engines welded into a bulge at the lower end of the fuselage that also contained the landing gear and retractable wings for atmospheric operations, it was in a pure-brilliant white that no one aboard the Colonial Fleet had seen since before the fall. It's markings were odd as well. Even though it had the red-blue markings of the fighters, they were only very faint, what was far more prominent was the red medical markings on the rear... Only then did it occur to her that it was very similar to the insignia that was being worn by Colonial medical personnel.

Beside her the 13th Tribe pilot was waiting, impatience radiating off her even though she had yet to move an inch. When the engines of the shuttle had come to a standstill, she barely waited for the sound to die before dashing forward to the aft end of the shuttle where a ramp was lowered by one of the crew inside. Seconds later she came back out, carrying two large and seemingly heavy bags.

The shuttle took off again soon after, and with a glance up to the booth where the bay controller was sitting, she could see from his not that they had used the full and correct procedures for a manual take-off.

Clayworth meanwhile was handling her bags, and when Starbuck glanced at her questioningly, she grinned. "Fear not, Captain. All of this and what's in these will have been thoroughly sanitized. That probably took longer than having it packed."

Starbuck gave a flash of a smile and asked Clayworth if she wanted to go to her assigned quarters first as the Admiral didn't expect them for almost half an hour.

The readhead shook her head. "No, I'd like somewhere where I can change into my general duties uniform first, if possible. This flight suit is..."

As a pilot, Starbuck understood.

"Pilot's locker rooms and showers are down there." she said, indicating the direction. Luckily everything was empty, and it took Clayworth to re-emerge.

She wore a uniform that was, if anything, far more casual and utility-oriented than it's colonial counterpart, except for the for the boots that went a bit over the ankles, but where half hidden by the pants, which, like the rest of the uniform, where in a blue so dark it was almost black. A black belt sealed the upper and lower half of the uniform together. The upper half was in some ways similar to the flight suit, except that it's front was closed with an almost invisible zipper, with the same rank insignia on the shoulders and a short stripe which she know knew read _Belfast_, even though she neither knew where the ship's name came from nor could actually read the language. Under this Clayworth wore a white shirt, and was that a tie? As Starbuck inspected her appearance, Clayworth placed a flat, squashed-looking hat on her head, adjusting it so that the crest on it's front was exactly over her left eye and tucked a few stray hairs of that which were not in the bun, underneath.

"Is this formal enough for a press conference?" she asked, and Starbuck took in how Clayworth radiated professionalism and competence in a way Starbuck hadn't seen since before the fall. The nuggets she'd had to train and fly with planed in comparison.

"Oh yes, it's fine."

"Thank god. I think somewhere out there is a law that dress uniforms have to be ridiculously uncomfortable." Clayworth smiled to herself and thus didn't see the flash of worry that ran across Starbuck's face, but even if she had, she still knew next to nothing about her hosts, so wouldn't really have understood it.

Starbuck suppressed it, after all, the 13th Tribe had been isolated from the rest of the 12 colonies for so long, it was quite possible that their religion had developed along different paths. 13th Tribe Anthropology had been a highly...theoretical subject among the Colonies' scholars and one that had attracted it's fare share of ridicule, but now one of those theoreticians would be worth his weight in gold.

Once in the conference room, Clayworth found herself confronted with the President and Vice President, with the Admiral, his XO and the CAG of the ship, all in all Colonial top brass of both civilian and military variety.

"I hear your Admiral has issued official orders. Do they say anything about his intentions?"

"You know the pertinent parts already."

"And after we fly top where ever you want us to go? What then?"

Just a little bit of bite in his voice, but Clayworth suspected his reasons, and they were honourable, if to her and the Navy not particularly useful ones.

"Sir, I don't know exactly. But regulations and experience of past first contacts with refugee fleets gives us a rough idea."

Roslyn tilted her head and asked, more bluntly than she had intended: "This has happened before?"

Clayworth crunched up her face, trying to recall the incidents she had read about. "Not quite like this. The Terran Alliance has encountered alien refugee fleets maybe three or four times since we started colonization ourselves. If you were to apply for Allied Protection or outright asylum, we would be obliged to defend you from those pursuing you."

She paused, but before anyone could say something she went on. "Now, once we get this fleet out of immediate danger..."

Roslyn interrupted, and she gave Adama and then Clayworth an apologetic look. "Is there any immediate danger?"

Clayworth shook her head. "Not very likely, but at the Naval College they teach us not to tempt fate if we can avoid it. To be perfectly honest, the OpFor might find us and wondering what a short Task Force and a bunch of civilian ships are doing out in the middle of nowhere. If we figure a five light-year jump range for the fleet, then the system would be two and a half jumps from here if I am not mistaken."

The President then looked at Clayworth with a mix of regret and pity. "They are going to ask you what your people intend to do about the Colonies."

Clayworth had 'chipped' what digitized records of Colonial history and society still existed in _Galactica_'s computers from the conversion while they had waited for the Cylons to arrive, and even though she knew that a lot was missing and that time had been too short to learn the ins and outs of a society, she knew enough to be able to tell that whatever team of diplomats and anthropologists ended up waiting for them at their destination would have their hands full.

"Well, I tell the truth. I don't know, and that it is for my superiors to decide. A Captain in your service would normally not have decided grand strategy either, now would he?"

Roslyn smiled. "No, probably not."

The Fleet officers grinned remembering the old days and a normalcy they had all but forgotten. Roslyn understood because she had once been in the lower part of the food chain herself, albeit a different one. Zarek on the other hand was far more willing to press the point against better judgement, always had been.

"Then what about the Colonies?"

Cue inward eyeroll, silent sigh, 'oh the things I do for England' and then speaking aloud.

"I don't know, and even if I did, it's not mine to say, Mr. Vice President."

"Why is that? Because you have..."

She interrupted him, something she wouldn't have done, but she had orders not to make any promises.

"To paraphrase, our's is not to reason why, ours is but to do, and in this case, not die. Besides, we are at war already."

She let the Colonials draw whatever conclusions from this.

Zarek realized that he was barking up the wrong proverbial tree. He had been used to operate within the confines of the fleet for so long that he hadn't realized that the 13th Tribe hadn't. They had not been virtually wiped out, their military looked to be huge, and in their fleet someone like Captain Thrace would rarely, if ever, meet the President, let alone be consulted on strategy. And as misleading as her rank may look to a Colonial, she was no higher in the normal structure than _Galactica_'s CAG. Time to admit his fault.

"You're right, Lieutenant-Commander. My apologies."

Starbuck sighed. "The press won't like it, and even less will the fleet. They will want to know why we aren't going back to the Colonies right now."

No one said anything more, and Clayworth was fighting the urge to break the awkwardness. "You have something to say, Lieutenant-Commander?"

The President's voice dragged her back to reality.

"Well..." she hesitated, and reached up to adjust her perfectly sitting beret, "it's not my place, but what about 'things need...time to prepare' and 'we will get settled first'?"

Clayworth sighed, "Of course I wouldn't presume to..."

Roslyn raised her hands, and suddenly looked like the teacher she had once been.

"It's no presumption on your part."

What she didn't say was that she and those in the room knew very well that the remnants of the 12 Colonies would have to go to their brethren hat in hand. In essence, she was reduced to asking for handouts and depending on Earth's kindness in order for her people to survive.

That the 13th Tribe had done so well, by the looks of things, didn't make it any easier. Roslyn already knew that she would have to sell this to the fleet, and she also knew that she couldn't expect the 13th Tribe to drop it's own affairs in the middle of what seemed to be a massive interstellar war just to go liberate the irradiated remnants of a system populated by a society they seemed to have forgotten even existed by all accounts.

Which opened up a whole other problem. Clayworth hadn't said anything, but by the very way she had avoided talking about Earth's ancient history the President knew that best case, they had forgotten about or discarded their heritage in the time since they had arrived here.

The intercom on the wall beeped.

Adama picked up.

"Time to face the hounds."

* * *

The press conference was being held in the pilot's ready room. Normally Colonial One was used for occasions such as this one, but Roslyn felt that since they had just had a military situation, Adama should be taking the lead.

To Clayworth it seemd that, if anything, the Fleet News Service was tiny, but also very similar to the Allied press. That was something that Clayworth somehow hadn't expected, but then, the last refugee fleet humanity had encountered had deemed their 'rescuers' to be a lower class because humanity had a free press, never mind that they allowed their females to show themselves in public.

Here on the other hand it was almost as if she was watching the holoband broadcast of the PM's weekly news conference on the state of the war, except that she was not in her quarters, nor even on the street in front No.10 back on Earth.

The usual pleasantries had been exchanged, and Clayworth would never forget the moment of silence followed by the explosion of questions that had taken place when she had confirmed that she was from Earth. But then they had ramped things up, and considerably at that. Now, ten minutes in, she was faced with a question where she knew the answer.

Trouble was, the answer just might destroy any diplomatic successes she may have achieved.

"When is the 13th Tribe going to aid us in re-taking the Colonies?"

Clayworth knew the chances of an Allied attack to retake the Colonial's homes ranged from zero to non-existent, and even if the war hadn't occupied the entirety of Earth's warmachine, she doubted that anyone would have started a war on a whim just because some refugees claimed it to be the 13th Tribe's gods-given duty. As harsh as that may have looked, she agreed, never mind that there was no 13th Tribe to begin with.

What the Colonials didn't know was that one of the items sent over to her was a short-range comms unit. Designed to facilitate the communication of planet-bound Special Forces with Allied ships in the high orbitals, it was often used during the early insertion phase. Because of this, it broadcast on a frequency band that lay so far outside the normal bands that, while limited in range when compared to normal broadcast units and unable to transmit voice, it was undetectable unless one knew what to look for.

Clayworth hated to be circumspect like this, but at least she could be more open than during her 'official' reports that would go through _Galactica_'s comms systems.

She remembered the question, and the reporters patiently waiting for an answer.

"I don't know. It is highly probable that my superiors have a plan," she hoped that their Lordships of Admiralty would forgive her this little white lie, "but they chose not to tell me. But I must caution you. We are already involved in a war, so it might be some time before enough resources can be spared."

Roslyn took over the question, knowing what a position Clayworth was in.

"It is one of the points I intend to raise with their leaders soon enough."

"So we are certain that this.." the reporter from the Caprica Times pointed at Clayworth, "is the 13th Tribe?"

Clayworth didn't know what to say, but she knew that once the truth broke, Roslyn would probably be accused of lying. Conspiracy theories had a tendency to form even more quickly among the desperate. She liked the Colonial President, so she decided to improvise.

"I was myself born on Earth, I went to school on Earth and my country's core territory is on Earth."

Roslyn was puzzled. What Clayworth had said was the best, most evasive non-answer she had heard in a while. It indicated that the Lieutenant-Commander knew what she was being asked, and that she was hiding something. She made a mental note to talk to her later about it, preferably corner her somewhere before returning to Colonial One.

"Then what are your immediate plans for the fleet?"

Time to go back to work. The President took a deep breath and leaned forward to the microphone.

"We have talked with the Admiral in command of their forces here, and we have decided that it is best for the security of the fleet to move to another system. Here the chance of another Cylon attack or by the enemies of Earth is too large. And yes, I have stated several times that we intend to maintain neutrality in their war."

Clayworth knew that she now had to reassure them. "Neither the British Empire nor the other members of the Terran Alliance have any intention of involving the Twelve Colonies in a war of which they have no part."

As the press conference wound down, Roslyn reflected on it, only once speaking again to say that yes, the Government intended to move the fleet without consulting the Quorum as the Cylons knew that they were here and that it was smart to leave on that basis alone, and that yes, one would work with the Terrans for now. Clayworth said no more, but the President didn't fault her. She had said enough, no new war for the Colonies. She also had left it unsaid that the reverse was also true, but Roslyn heard it anyway. In some ways she was miffed by this, but she could hardly fault them.

What little Clayworth had told since she had awoken made it clear that the sphere colonized by the 13th Tribe was huge, and that they, in spite of their political fragmentation that ahd to be seen to be believed, were doing relatively well against an Alien enemy that hugely outnumbered them. Strangely, the idea that these people might not be the 13th Tribe suddenly frightened her more than the idea of Alien life-forms, so she dismissed it. After all, who else could they be?

tbc

Battlebridge = CIC

I'm not happy with my choice of No.3s, but unfortunately, times change and surely, in 200 years so would even the Royal Navy's uniforms. Inspiration from this comes from the new No.4s they started trialling aboard HMS Daring this spring, though there is far less slack in the material, and the rank insignia are where they belong, on the shoulders or, for ORs, on the sleeves. Some aspects of this, such as the para-style trousers, come from the time when the uniforms doubled as emergency suits in dire straits during the early days of the Senior Service in space. As to the ship-name stripe, Commonwealth-born Officers and ORs would have the one on the right shoulder replaced with one that would read their country of origin. If a wearer were to take off the upper half, you could mistake him or her for wearing a 2012 male No.3 at a glance. Hedgear is a bog-standard Navy Blue beret with the Navy's crest. As for a female variant..in a place where artificial gravity can fail, skirts would be...unfortunate.

No.2s are changed a lot less, right down to not wearing the white hat covering during wartime.


	7. Chapter 6

**AN: Unless specifically stated, any race/nation is speaking it's mother tongue. Also, I am pre-supposing a 38 to 40 light year maximum jump range for military/survey vessels. Also, this piece has been fighting me for a week, so it's more incoherent than I'd like. I'm just happy to be done with it. I hope I managed to get the mixture of organic growth and artificial clunkiness I was going for across. I've probably missed half a dozen areas people might be interested in, so, by all means post them so I can add them to a future chapter. Sorry for the shortness, but my patience with this piece was at an end. **

**Chapter 6**

The race that Earth's humanity was fighting for almost a decade now was not one that wantonly evil, and that was the first thing that Humanity had noticed about their new enemy. Science Fiction, from HG Wells to the early 22nd Century had always assumed that an Alien invader would be malevolent and intentionally cruel as well as bent on subjugating humanity, and there were certainly some such races out there, but the only one that had a decent chance at doing it had only the last of those attributes. Unlike the humans, they didn't go out of their way to pick up survivors after a battle, theirs or the humans like their adversaries, but they did not set out to kill them either.

Not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because their species frowned on anything that hindered the war effort. Killing prisoners was giving the enemy ammunition and motivation, and was thus not to be done, a truism that the Moggies had encountered years before they had even heard of the human race.

Where their ships were rounded forms with only the barest minimum of external features, the members of the race themselves were very impressive to look at. On average a head taller than a human, their look was once described by a human reporter as 'a mix between a a cat and a kangaroo'. The latter had more to do with the commander of the ship making first contact and the reporter having been Australian than the Moggies' ability to jump farther and higher than a human, but the rest was spot on.

Even then, the comparison with Earth's common house cat would only go so far. For one, the general proportions of the body and their extremities relative to their height was more like that of any number of humanoid species. Secondly, there was not any known species of cat, natural or artificial, that had grey lizard-like scales on the palms of it's 'hands' and running up it's 'arms' before disappearing into it's fur near the collarbone. Nor did Earth cats have snouts that long with almost raptor-like teeth in them. All that was topped off with a tail about two-thirds the length of any given being's legs.

But other than that, the Moggies were feline enough to warrant that derogative which became all but official parlance in lieu of something better.

Outwardly the Moggies were a warrior race, and that was the face that most species saw when they interacted with them, but behind the lines, hidden away by deliberate and accidental deception, was a lively population of civilian artisans, scientists, technicians and people performing all the other myriad of non-military tasks required for a functioning society. Culturally the Moggies had a caste system that was best compared to the one of Earth's old pre-imperial India, though with the moggies there was no caste of untouchables, and there was enough social mobility that even a member of the lowest caste, 'those who sing and dance' or, to put it in human terms, artists of all sorts, could, through a highly regulated and sometimes dangerous series of rituals and tests of personal bravery and ability, reach the highest, the warrior caste.

Because of this there was little in the way of social tensions as humans defined them. While there was rivalry between families that had been established in a particular caste for a while, and then some between the established ones and any newcomers, the 'tribalism' that so defined Terran humanity did not exist, as there had never really been nation states in the human sense to begin with.

If the race whose name roughly translated into 'the People' had a major weakness, it was it's reliance on rituals. There were rituals for everything from the way one greeted a fellow on the street to the selection of a mate, and this slowed down the speed at which their technology adapted and improved down considerably. To compare, it would take a Moggie defence project at least twice as long to wind it's way through the maze of bureaucracy and ritualized social customs than even the worst of pre-war humanity's military-industrial complex.

To an extent this was also showing itself in the tactics they used in battle. Individual warriors or ships, small groups at best, generally used highly adaptable tactics, but fleet combat and Grand Strategy had the tendency to become predictable.

Summarizing, this meant that while for example while their response to something like the recent human offensive could be predicted with a high degree of accuracy, the tactical moves and manoeuvres they would use to pursue their strategy would get harder and harder to anticipate the farther down one went, right down to the individual fighter pilots that were devilishly dangerous for any adversary.

The outwards image the Moggies cultivated was reinforced by the design of their ships. Their fighters, while radically different in some respects, were recognizable enough, but their ships were the complete and total triumph of function over form. Where Human ships abided by rules set down by centuries of naval tradition and history, the Moggies were rating utility and defence over everything.

Human ships had what was called a 'bridge bump', which served the same use as the superstructure of Earth's water-borne warships had, and a separate Battlebridge, hidden deep below the ship's main armour belt, but reachable from the bridge within less than a minute via a high-speed lift.

Theoretically at least, human ships could operate even with the bulge shot away, but usually when that happened, the rest of the ship was so damaged that it did not really matter.

In the system about four-hundred light-years behind the front, around two hundred ships of all sizes were orbiting or docked at the series of space docks and repair facilities that dotted the high orbitals of the system's three planets. Among other things, the whole facility acted as a repair/refit base, and the number of ships was low even for a base of this size. It was a clear indication that there had been no major combat for some months.

Fleet General Karan was a tried and tested veteran, and at an age equivalent to a human in his late 40s, it showed, and not only on his uniform. His fur was in the same light-brown colour that the rest of his family had, but it had a few grey strands, and in many places was cone completely, with the scars earned during a life of campaigning proudly displayed. He hated this job, but he knew that the Conclave of Elders' policy of putting experienced warriors into places where they could pass their experience on, and his was this Repair base, or rather, the Learning Colony on the only habitable body, a forest moon on a wide orbit around a gas giant.

When the first colonists had arrived some two centuries ago, they had spent the first two years wiping out a race of furry, but annoying little creatures before establishing one of two dozen Colonies of the type that not only provided a modest support base for the Warriors but also was used to teach new ones their skills.

Karan knew that this was the best of the lot, and the fact that he was assigned to the one that served the primary battlefront against the humans was as much honour and privilege as it was vital. Because of that his complains were silent and few.

He was inspecting the teaching schedule for the next week when a knock on the door of his office interrupted him.

The arriving Officer gave the traditional three-claw salute, but Karan rose from his seat, his tail indicating his good mood.

"Toran, old friend!"

The similarities of their names indicated that they came from the same area of the homeworld. The People's culture and language lacked the tribalism and accents which made the humans so maddeningly hard to predict and sometimes even harder to understand, so the only way to tell where someone was coming from was by their fur and by the way their name's end sounded.

"General, you wanted the news on the human activity in the Pron system."

Karan gave a barely perceptible nod and motioned for his friend to sit down.

Once seated, the other Officer, the Fleet Intelligence Section Commander, began his report.

"We have confirmed that the humans have stationed most, if not all of the British 7th Fleet there, but our reconnaissance units cannot get far enough into the system to give us certainty on that."

"Then don't order them to. Our Ancestors would not want us to waste our warrior's lives."

"Yes, General. But anyway, we found that they dispatched two task groups, one that they just seemed to stuff with whatever ships they had to spare and one sent off some time later which consisted of a full Carrier Battlegroup."

"Do we have identification?"

"Old Friend, we barely got a proper count. They jumped at the extreme minimum distance from the primary. To be honest..." Toran lowered his head and his tail in shame, "we only know it was a Carrier Battlegroup because two of the jump signatures were so large they stood out from the rest."

There were some Generals who would use this opportunity to belittle and get rid of an unwanted subordinate, but most Officers looked at this sort of behaviour as both dishonourable and tasteless, never mind that Karan knew that circumstances were things that not even the most dedicated service to the People could dictate.

"Any idea where they went?"

"Nothing firm, General. There is any number of systems the humans could have jumped into, but I could only guess which one it is."

Karan made a face that a charitable human would describe as a smile.

"Then guess away, old friend."

"Yes, General." Toran nodded respectfully, "best guess, a system where a light reconnaissance group we dispatched to scout the human flank ran into a lone scout a few Turns ago."

"Why?"

"General, I think it's because the first group jumping out had roughly the size of a reinforced British Search and Rescue force. What if they found something there that made them send reinforcements?"

The General tapped one of the controls built into his desk with the ring-finger claw of his right hand and the wall-sized display on the far wall brought up a sector map.

Using more controls he made the display zoom in on the sector in question.

"Whatever it is, it's not one of The People's fleets. Neither the Military nor the Scouting Force have ships in the area."

The Scouting Force was the functional equivalent to Earth's Intelligence Services and the military held it in similar (dis-)regard, seeing it as a necessary evil, nothing more. Unlike, for example, the Secret Intelligence Service of the British Empire or the Federal Intelligence Service of the Germans it was almost a fleet unto it's own, having ships outside the normal military chain of command. Their loyalty was ultimately to the same goal as the Military's, so conflicts of mission as would almost be inevitable in a similar situation among the humans were almost totally absent, even if the Scouting Force sometimes was as enigmatic as similar organizations often were in human literature.

As was, having their ships appear on the status displays in the various Military-run Fleet Bases was a matter of courtesy on the SF's part, but it was usually done because they did depend on the Military's infrastructure and logistics system, having none of their own, or at least nothing of the size they required during wartime.

The map zoomed out again and the human front was shown. Unlike The People's frontlines, marked in a comforting rust-brown hue, human-controlled space was shown in about a dozen different colours, each showing a country or international organization, from the British Empire to the South-American Union.

The tribalism of the humans had befuddled The People's exo-anthropologists since First Contact. They had themselves never really had the concept of a disunited gaggle of Nation-states on the homeworld. Their language was the same all over, with only minimal differences in local dialect, and their culture was similar enough across the species that Anthropology as a scientific discipline hadn't really existed until The People had ventured into space and found that this half of the galaxy was teeming with life different than their own.

And yet, the humans were puzzling. A species that had fought among itself for centuries, that had, outside testing, deliberately nuked it's own planet seven times, had fought two global wars had still managed to band together when challenged and was the first enemy The People had ever encountered that had a worryingly good chance at defeating the Military in a long, protracted war.

Their tribalism made them hard to predict at the best of times quite aside from the nightmare it was to keep track of their uniforms, languages and organizations. Things that were par the course for one country were different for another, and all put together it made them highly adaptive to new situations.

Still, he knew that the humans did few things 'just because', especially when valuable ships and crews were involved.

"So, what do you suggest?"

"General, it's best if we try and send in a Stealth Reconnaissance vessel. A K'rath Class is currently moored at slip..." he checked a datapad, "at slip 225. She could be under way in three or four Segs at most."

"Korog's ship if I am not mistaken?"

"Yes, General. The _5__th__ Daughter of Oromdi_ has completed their scheduled overhaul. The new sensor packages and data processing systems have been installed."

"Crew training?"

Toran frowned. "Could be better, General. But they have the required simulator hours on their new systems."

"It'll have to do. Just the same, send a request to the Scouting Force, anything they have on the system. I doubt we'll get much, but as the Ancestors say, a question asked is better than an answer overlooked."

Nodding, Toran made a note on his datapad. "Yes, General. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, there is. I want you to send me the report on enemy fleet movements you were going to send off tomorrow. Something is going on, and Ancestors know it's driving me mad trying to figure out what it is."

tbc

Tile = second

Part = Minute

Seg = Short for segment, the functional equivalent of an hour.

Turn = Day

Unit = week

Cycle = month is the closest equivalent, but it's based on a cyclic weather phenomenon. Think El Ninio but a dozen orders of magnitudes heavier.

Rot = slang for rotation or, in human terms, a year


End file.
